From Yak Magazine to Capturing Bali Through Photography with Sophie Digby, E022

Today we have a conversation with Sophie Digby, and it's a slightly different podcast than normal, because Sophie would not claim to be a photographer, filmmaker or creative in the visual art space, but she is passionate about art and she's co-founder of one of the most successful publications in South East Asia, the Yak Magazine.
Not only that, she's a good friend and is a wealth of knowledge and wisdom when it comes to life and cultural practices in Bali and Indonesia.
So we do talk quite a lot about the practices of different cultures, but also about entrepreneurship, fashion, photography, design and much, much more.
She also brought me some mint chocolates, so that's enough for me.
We love Sophie on this show and we wish she was on these types of platforms a lot more, because her character was made for these modes of conversations.
So now, without further ado, here is Sophie Digby.
What brought you here in the first place?
I mean, give us a bit of a concise history of your Bali beginnings and your life.
I was working well, used to be a skin instructor.
Oh, okay, right, and my dad passed away and my stepmother kept everything.
So I left and go and find my own fortune.
And I had a girlfriend who was working for the Japan Times, which is an English language Japanese newspaper, and they had a side company called World Eye Reports.
So I went to work for World Eye Reports.
So then they just sent me on these amazing joints to create their supplements.
So I did Montreal, I did Hungary, sri Lanka, indonesia twice and Hong Kong.
For how long?
In each Indonesia, three months, okay.
So I did Indonesia in 1993 and Indonesia in 1994.
Three months.
And then 1994 was five months, because there was a lot of work and there was a big uptake into that supplement because it was coming up to their 50th anniversary.
And I met my ex in Jakarta.
He's actually from Sumatra but born in Jakarta and then after a while I left.
He helped me with one of the projects, the last project, and then I didn't want to work with them anymore because it was like you move a lot in that industry.
Three months in a country, you get to know the culture, but you never make friends because you know it's so fast.
You know, you're there, you're gone, you're there, you're gone again.
So I lived in Jakarta for one year and I'm not a city girl, so I had come to Bali a few times and I said, right, let's just move to Bali.
So we moved to Bali.
Like the language straight away.
No, indonesians love practicing their English with you, so it's quite hard.
But at that time Indonesian television was subtitled, so I'd hear the program in English and I'd read the subtitle, and so I was.
You know, I think it was Star Trek actually, and Family Fortune and things like that.
So my vocabulary was great.
But I could never string a sentence together until I had the lovely Madi, my housekeeper.
My first housekeeper, when she was from North Bali, did not speak English, and then bang, and I had to jump in there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we get a bit spoiled with the people we surround ourselves with.
In terms of the locals, they speak too much English, almost you kind of want to.
It's too easy for us to not speak Parsa, but we're learning.
We're getting there slowly, much more slowly than we'd like, but we're learning bit by bit.
I suggest that you know subtitles, which they don't have anymore, because now they have a burgeoning TV industry, right, and if you can get some, pass anything that's subtitles English into Indonesian or the other way around.
That really kind of helps click, click a language.
Oh, I find that.
I find that yeah.
I'm too quick to go to the excuse of oh, I'm 40 years old.
You know it's difficult for me to learn languages, which is absolutely bullshit.
It's just laziness, so do you speak other languages.
No One thing.
I feel like I've probably told myself I've never been good at not being one of my strengths, even at school with French and Germans.
I just was not interested, wasn't good at it because I probably wasn't interested.
So I've kind of carried that through my life and everywhere we've been, even Hong Kong, where we lived for 10 years, everyone spoke English a little bit less now with a bit more of the Chinese mainland influence where English is not taught as much in schools anymore.
But I think if we moved there now we'd be more forced to learn Cantonese or Mandarin at least.
But yeah, we're just being spoiled.
Never really felt we've needed to, which is also not an excuse here when we came we're like, whether we need to or not, just because we want to integrate or so show as much respect as we can and just you know just easier and it's more fun for us to speak the local language.
Yeah, and once you get that sense of humour and you can give them a sense of humour.
It's great fun.
Plus, it's cheaper.
Yeah, and they love it.
They love the haggling.
Yeah, you've got to understand that Bolognese actually are already born bilingual, you know, because they'll speak the three levels of caste language, you know high Bolognese, mid Bolognese and low Bolognese.
Yeah, you know, they'll speak at least two of them.
So basically they're kind of practically born bilingual and then they can just add English, you know, and many more languages.
They speak a little bit of this, a little bit of that, you know.
And the beach sellers, they speak like five languages.
It's incredible.
Yeah, oh, a bit of Japanese.
They'll throw in some Swedish.
You know a few words, you know.
Yeah, no, incredible incredible, wonderful People here are something different.
They're just so special and you know, we've all in this room had the privilege of travelling, you know, as a lot and they are by far the best people, one of the nicest cultures we've ever had the privilege of being involved with.
So we kind of feel like we do the place to service if we don't make an effort to as well as integrate in other ways, but certainly the language.
But yeah, we still haven't got there yet.
It's fun and difficult.
But no, I think well, for example, you're a photographer.
So the fact that you capture the essence because I've seen what you know, it's an amazing photography that you've been doing, not just in Bali, also in Java I mean I think that is a beauty and that's kind of certainly a gift to give that visual respect, reverence and uniqueness of the culture.
The idea definitely, and when I figured out that's the style, that's the type of photography I want to do, that's the type of photography I love the most.
It's not about the images, it's about actually the experiences, the process and the people that we meet, and there are a few places that we are going back to just because of the people.
Like, yeah, we can get photos, we can get photos anywhere, but for my type of photography I want to do and it's kind of a I wanted to kind of create a love letter to Indonesia, because it's certainly I've fallen in love with this country for the probably the last 10 years as many times we've visited.
Now we live here in Bali and are able to just go to different places and so much we haven't explored as well.
So there's kind of that exploration we want to do, revisit and just learn more, because one visit a week somewhere you can't learn anything.
It's huge and it's so big and all of the subcultures and all of the nuanced cultural practices.
Cuisines is fantastic.
The food, the history, the practices, the yeah, just the so many different geographical landscapes and it's wonderful.
So we're really excited to kind of base ourselves here and explore, and explore, and explore.
But yeah, the photography is definitely a kind of a giving back.
Do you meet Dr Lawrence Blair, who I'm sure you've heard of?
Have you heard of Dr Lawrence Blair?
I think so.
So, dr Lawrence.
So Lorne Blair and Lawrence Blair.
They were the boys that made the first documentary called Ring of Fire.
Oh yeah, I've watched that Right.
So he lives in Bali.
Obviously Does he still live here.
He still lives here and right now I think he's editing his a series of his two from that GO, I hope.
And he's one of the most interesting people because he lives and loves you, know Indonesia and understands and has such a great education that he knows so much about everything oh great.
I would love to hear it's like of Indonesian history, of just everything.
I didn't know he was here.
Oh yes, no, no, he's here, he's here.
So if he ever does a talk, do you join.
Or if you ever hear that he's running a cruise, because he sometimes is one of the like you know, the resident master on one of these beautiful cruises that go around like the spice islands and he'll do a whole story about you know every fort you go to that piece of history, that book you should read, and then he'll also go snorkeling with you, diving with you, and, of course, he's an amazing diver and knows everything about underwater life.
I mean, you know, he's a David Bellamy and I don't know, he's just one of the most Wow, incredible people.
And to listen to him and to hear him and know that he's been around in the seventies, do you think he'd come on the show If he's not busy, possibly.
I think you should definitely give you his number.
That'd be very great.
I mean if it would tie up with you know him.
Being able to talk about what he's doing with his series would be amazing.
Yeah, I mean, diving is another thing that we love to do, and Indonesia is obviously a mecca for scuba diving.
I'm not a diver.
It's too far from the mini bar, did you?
It's too far.
Anyway, we've digressed already.
Tell us more about yourselves.
I mean you know people watching this may or may or may not know you, but I'm sure a lot of people certainly hear, know of the Yak magazine.
So tell us kind of a little bit about how that started.
I mean, what is it?
Over 10 years old now, 20.
Over 20 years old, 20 this year Wow, Congratulations.
So when I first came to Bali back in 96, I came and I started a small guidebook magazine called Bali Plus, because basically in 96, there was no internet, there was no phone, there was no information.
There were a couple of magazines already there was Bali Echo, I think, hello Bali and a couple of other magazines, but there was nothing I could put in my handbag and refer to and no maps with grids and things.
So I got kind of annoyed that I'd missed an Eddie Grant concert, because it you know, you just didn't find out about it.
And then one of the ceremonies I think it was the Doa Sriya ceremony I said what's only happens once every 25 years.
So I missed that and I thought well, we just need this calendar of events and we need quick information.
So we just started a small guidebook called Bali Plus, literally 10 by 21, back pocket handbag style.
So I did that with my ex partner Hendra and we did that for 96 and I started the yak in 2003.
So that's when I left Bali Plus in 2003 and started the yak.
And the yak, yes, it's called the yak after the last three letters of Seminyak.
So it doesn't mean yak as in yakity yak, it is literally the last three letters of Seminyak, and that's why everyone wants to still do.
One called the goo.
Okay, and it was really interesting, I suppose because we're talking about 2003,.
We just had the first bomb.
I got calls from South China Morning Post and that's built, I think, saying what are you doing?
Starting a luxury lifestyle magazine after you know an event like that?
It never even occurred to me that, due to that event, we wouldn't or we would either.
It was just, you know something.
We'd already moved on from that, I think, and Bali and everyone else's eyes were still attached to that attention magnet, you know, but we'd already moved on quite fast.
They were asking you because it was maybe in-sensitive or just not a good business decision.
Yeah, not a good business decision no, nothing to do, in-sense.
Nobody was sensitive back in 2003.
Everyone was still fast asleep.
No one needed a meaning of the word offence or woke.
Yeah, yeah.
So we started it and it was a beautiful, it was a 48-page magazine and I clicked and it, you know, and I went perfect 60 odd 48 pages.
Sorry, issues.
How many issues?
Now we're on 60.
This is 68.
So it was a beautiful and it's been a beautiful journey because, as we offered everyone a platform and a window and we were very picky about who could come in, and sometimes we'd send their artwork back and say it's not good enough or photography, go and get a better photography, so we really pushed people that wanted to be in the magazine to step up to the plate and get into this big format which is 26 by 28.
I mean, so you can't take a small photo and make it big.
You know pixelates etc.
And most of the businesses, because you know computers we're talking about 2003,.
Right, so I got my first Mac.
You know the big orange block thing in 96, secondhand in Bali, and so you know people weren't used to that size, that format.
Right, I mean people are still talking about Coral Draw and PageMaker and you know no in design there yet, yeah, no, not at all.
So it was really, really, we all educated each other.
We definitely educated each other and everyone thankfully I'm really grateful stepped up to the plate and we started making together.
It's a very together project in that we provided the window and the platform and everyone else got to put their fabulous things in it.
You know, and, and yeah, and it was, we all grew.
We all grew in luxury and lifestyle.
So, yeah, and we, we can wipe it.
The yak became this foundation stone of luxury lifestyle in Bali and a lot of people, because of the yak, moved here.
You know, they saw it.
They either open restaurants or shops or businesses or you know it kind of enforced, not saying they moved here because of the yak.
You're the ones to blame for all the.
No, no, that's Deus, that's Changu darling.
Sorry, now I'm joking, sorry, dustin, didn't mean that I know Joking, not joking.
No, well, I think progress I mean it's when you put progress, progress in that.
I mean I think definitely the yak had a hand in encouraging the move.
The luxury lifestyle which came with villas, which came with shops, which came with more tourists.
It came with a high end tourist.
You know, it was definitely like slightly more.
We call it economic freedom, you know, tourists with more economic freedom, less backpack, less sofa, you know, and obviously an answer to this influx of luxury lifestyle, luxury lifestyle was built, you know, which means hotels and villas and other things, you know.
And yeah, and we very much steered away from the Balinese culture because Bali, plasip, just still going at that time, was very much about Balinese culture.
So, not to step on anyone's toes, because, hello, bali was also Balinese culture.
So we just wanted to steer away from that, from, you know, turning on other people's toes in the advertising world and in conversations.
Really, so how do you see the magazine industry at present moment and the future of something like the Yak Magazine?
Do you think it's?
dying.
It's a very interesting conversation, which I'm great because I'm gonna have it with you for the first time.
I'm gonna put the Yak Magazine is gonna hibernate, okay, right, I've got a lot of stuff to do in the next, probably like eight months to a year, that I have to do personally and the Yak kind of after COVID, the team doesn't, because everyone went freelance.
The team isn't that core team that could run it without me being here, so I'll hibernate it for a year.
I've got to go and move my mom, my mom's relocating to Bali, which is a lot right, so to relocate, and we're not saying she's coming for a holiday, no, she's upstituting.
From the UK From the UK.
Okay, wow.
She's basically divesting herself of all life and furniture and stuff that she has there, moving here.
So she's 85.
She's 85.
No, no, she's fine, but she needs to come and live here and she's in pain there because it's wet, it's damp, you don't walk anywhere, it's raining, it's you know.
And you know how my stepfather passed away last August so August 2022.
And the plan's always been for her to live here, always when he passed away.
I mean, that's just always been the plan that she would come to Bali.
So, finally, you know we can put that plan in motion, but it's a lot.
You know, when I helped to move out of a flat in London and that was just to move all the stuff out of the flat into the house, endorse it, right, which was just one moving thing it took two weeks of heavy packing and wrapping and running things around to the you know the hospice, or to the you know the shelter homes or whatever you know.
So you know the homeless foundation.
So it's, you know we're talking about 85 years of gathering stuff in a largeish house, so it's got loads of rooms to kind of just, you know, accumulate things.
What will you do with it after it's hibernation?
Do you think you'll bring it back in the same format, or is it something you'll move to purely online, or it would really still work here twice a year, really, really.
I mean, already we had a list of people that wanted to come in.
I was going to move deadlines to January to June and then July to December.
Those two peak times are good, I think.
Oh, I think very much, very much for the yak, it's very much still.
It was still a very good, a good magazine to do.
We would, you know, cause we're quite niche and that I think that's been our saving grace in the end.
We're very niche.
We're very, very flexible to to waves of what we, what we wish to create or what's going on in Bali and we want to reflect.
So, for example this was the last issue was the creative collective, and that's very much about, you know, the creative people here.
So thankfully, this time around it was fantastic, cause we got to cover, you know, a lot of the beautiful Indonesian people that moved here a lot, a lot of them moved here in COVID.
So you know, we have a closer contact with them and, for example, the next one probably would have been about property, and so we're able to ride that wave or reflect that wave and you know, then we could definitely say what's going on.
You know really what is happening with this you know, and and I think, and I think what we, I think we might, we've just talked about, you know, before we started recording people just have come in blinkered, blinkered.
They only want what they want, which is the four bedroom villa or the house.
They haven't come in for the culture, they've just come in roughshod and they just want it cause it's sunny, it's beaches and nice lifestyle.
You can have a nanny, you can have a housekeeper, you know, you have a, you know, which you could never afford back in your country.
You know, and that's that.
I think that's the.
That's the difference of the people that you know.
When I did Bali Plus Bali Plus was very much about this ceremony that ceremony we had a list of do's and don'ts in the back which was don't shove your camera in the priest's face, don't jump on a temple, do not enter if you're menstruating, don't walk in in a bikini and all these things.
And, of course, once Bali Plus didn't print that anymore, then we get all these people running roughshod over, over over.
You know cultural sensitivities and religious.
You know religious rules, actually, you know, and they're just not interested.
And if they're interested, they actually want to kick against them, they want to like you know, disrespect them, which I always find extraordinary extraordinary that is a culture of our societies like it's just this desire to rebel just for the sake of rebelling, and I don't get it and I don't want to pinpoint certain generations or certain parts of the world, but you know the the kind of the spokesman for that movement was certainly someone like Donald Trump, where it's like you call him a liar and he'll say no, no, no, I'm not, you know, he'll literally just say no, no, I don't care what you say.
This is what I think and I think we're seeing that.
I'm not saying he's the problem, but we started to see that All politicians lie, by the way, of course, but he, he and politicians.
There's just a kind of fuck you attitude to anyone, anyone, any rules or any traditions or any cultural.
Respect.
I mean I think the disrespect, the respect of the elderly see in Asia doesn't have that you know Asia is still.
Yet I mean you know the Indonesian doesn't disrespect another Indonesian.
They wouldn't get an England and push a policeman, no.
I'm not talking.
I think Southeast Asia doesn't have that.
They wouldn't climb up Big Ben and take a pee or something ridiculous like that, you know.
Or go into Salisbury Cathedral and, you know, wash their face in the font or whatever it is, you know, they just wouldn't.
And I think it's a Western, I think it's this.
This me.
First, attitude number one, and then I think there's a sense of entitlement.
Why?
Because you can get free money.
Get free money, you don't have to work that hard, you just put your hand up, the government will give you something.
So then, therefore, you lack respect.
You know, you lose that value.
Yeah, and I met Lee Ka-Shing.
Actually, I met Lee Ka-Shing.
Yeah, in Japan, when I was working for the Japan Times in Hong Kong and I said you know what is China doing right, that the West is doing wrong?
And he said you're giving people money for free and that's gonna come back and bite you.
Yeah, because China doesn't give you anything for free.
I mean they'd rather not buildings now, which they're doing now they give free money.
They'd rather like waste their own money, kind of thing, rather than give away free money.
Because what is the West doing wrong that China's doing that?
And he said not giving away free money.
I think that's because it was about.
You know, there was always a slightly more those questions with those people.
You really want to know their thought pattern.
Yeah, because obviously, from being up there, from working in a hotbed and living in a hotbed, which is every six hours, right, four times in hotbeds in Hong Kong, so I think you can sleep for six hours and then you get out and somebody else gets in it.
That's why they call hotbeds.
So he had three jobs, just so that, because otherwise he had nowhere to go.
So he just worked, I mean six hours, six hours or six hours, and from selling silk flowers at the peninsula, right, and then obviously he must have done something a little bit more creative after that.
He had to get that rich, right?
He must be way more creative.
I need to stop talking about China, right, but I think and anyway.
so yes, I agree with you Southeast Asia, Southeast Asia, I love.
Indonesians have a lot of respect for their elders.
They still live with their grandparents.
That's the difference.
They live with their grandparents.
They're very, very caring, they're the vendor of a backwards for them because they understand that their parents bent over backwards for them as kids.
And I think Western it's like everyone's trying to push granny into the old people's home or the hospice, or you know, and plus you know they get treated badly in those places.
You know.
Yeah, unless you've got loads of money.
Yeah, and even then and even then you work away from this.
You know, you wouldn't know.
So anyway, back to where we were about Bali and respect and all that, and I think, culturally, I think it's a shame that people have come to Bali with more of an intention to have a lifestyle, be able to get more for their money, more value, bang for their buck.
But that's okay if you-.
But not learn about the culture.
Yes.
You know I mean it almost should be, you know it should be a rule and you know the first six months if you want your visa, if you want to extend your visa after a year, here's a multiple choice question about Balinese culture.
But honestly, sophie, I don't 100% agree with you.
But I don't think it's isolated to somewhere like Bali.
I think you see that.
I mean I travel a lot, I see it everywhere, I see it everywhere.
People, especially Westerners, right, and this is a Western problem and part of it is that entitlement.
I don't know where that's come from.
I think it's a little bit short-sighted to put it on COVID, where people were getting handouts just willy-nilly, but I think it's endemic to that society and I see it everywhere, every country.
Brits are probably the worst Brits, americans- Aussies, Brits are bored oh my God, it's just they don't want, they don't care about the culture, they just want sun, sea, sand and something cheap Chicken and chips and chips, which is okay if you can partner that with some element of no pire.
No pire like it comes down to education, it always comes down to education.
People are not wanting to educate themselves on different ways of life and different cultures in the history of those different cultures, because they just don't want it.
They don't care, which is ironic because we live in a world where you can educate yourself on anything at the click of a button if you really wanted to.
So I put it down to that and then, because they're not educated, they don't care, and because they don't care, they're at like dickheads, and Bali, unfortunately, is.
I mean even.
We've only been here nearly 18 months and we've seen the difference just in that short space of time.
We probably contributed to a little bit.
Try not to, but it's so sad and I don't know what the solution is Apart from education means Stop giving people visas.
Yeah, there you go.
But that's money, just no more visas, no more visas, no more visas.
I think you know, manit.
I think if you look at Bali, it ran away with itself.
It's popularity, it ran away with itself.
You go somewhere like Bhutan.
You know Bhutan.
It costs you 700 bucks just to get in oh, do you love to go there?
And then 100 bucks a day.
You have to prove yourself and that's how they stopped it.
I mean that's how they don't have that.
Did they have that problem before?
No, they never had a problem?
I don't know that's the whole thing, just what I'm saying.
Bali you can't change once it's run away with you.
You can't put the horse back in the stable once it's galloped across the horizon.
You know it's too difficult.
Hopefully I've got a lot of hope for Tabanan, actually vis-a-vis Badung, which is where this region we're in Tabanan, having looked at what's happening here in Badung, are really gonna try and keep a handle on it and they're not gonna allow that kind of runaway building and that kind of runaway design and that kind of runaway fingers crossed.
I mean, I really do wish Erwin the king of he's not the king of Tabanan, he's a bit of one of the regions inside Tabanan, one of the smaller regions.
He's very much pushing towards cultural respect and decent investment.
Used to be you could only build on 60% of your land.
You had to leave 40% green and you couldn't build taller than a palm tree and all that stuff but and of course we're exacerbated.
The problem of traffic is because they cannot build overpasses.
And you might wonder why?
Because they don't build overpasses, because my private parts can't pass over your head.
Oh is that the reason so this is why they put the offering box.
You see the offerings on the ground.
Those are for the naughty spirits, yep, yep, the darker side right.
And then the offering boxes here up in the corner for the gods, the deified ancestors that live in Gunung Agong.
Now, usually they would never build two stories, that's why they've.
All Bollini's houses are bungalows.
That was gonna be my next question.
So what if you?
have multiple stories and someone's.
They never had them.
I mean, Bollini's architecture does not exist.
Everything is on a ground level, everything.
The only time you have a little higher is if, for example, if we were in a ceremony, the Brahmins, the Brahmins which would be your Ida, Iyuz and your people like that, there was something like that, Batara, whatever, sorry, Boanas, and all that, so your Brahmins would sit higher than your Agongs, who would sit higher than your Wayans.
So within, if you go into a Bollini's compound, you'll see like a raised platform.
That's where the posh, the energetically posh people sit, or that was called nobility and religious nobility sit, and everyone else would sit lower down.
And hugely, hugely, hugely important not to get that wrong.
Fascinating.
And you wouldn't talk to them, not speaking to them in their caste language.
In fact, if you were from the lower caste, you wouldn't be speaking to the high caste.
You would be speaking to a middleman Usually the priests like a pedanda or something.
But anyway, going back to going back to, yes, private parts, so they find this private parts unclean.
So, for example, your underwear would go in the bottom drawer.
You wouldn't put your underwear in your top drawer like we do back in England.
You know, socks and knickers in the top drawer, no, no, no.
They put underwear on the bottom drawer and they would hang it on the bottom rung of the drying stand.
And in the old days people used to say I've never seen it.
When the rice harvest was about to happen, they didn't want anyone coming and stealing it.
They'd hang knickers around the rice paddy field because nobody would go under them.
Because that's, you know, it's super funny, right?
But that's one of the reasons.
that's why they can't do over parties, that's why we don't have over bridges and that's why we don't have over parties, so that my private parts go over your head.
It's just unclean, it won't happen, not allowed, and this is why everyone goes.
But why don't they do that?
And culturally they're not moving on, that.
They are not giving that one up, absolutely not.
Java.
You've got these over passes, under passes, ring roads, jacquard around here, you know, but here, absolutely not Different religion and this is the reason we have this traffic problem because of this highly ingrained religious fact.
But actually, if you're talking just aesthetically, I think I'd rather have the traffic problem than these eyesores of over passes and concrete jungle.
I mean, we don't want Bali to just become one big highway.
Yeah, interesting.
That's absolutely fascinating.
So the private parts that really is.
It's always been an interesting kind of.
There's two great books you should read and they're called Sokala Niskala.
Sokala Niskala and it means the scene and the unseen.
And there's volume one and volume two and they cover everything from architecture through to magic, through to ceremonies, through to cooking, through to the names and the numbers and the Balinese casts and architecture, and everything is done almost with a sense of purpose that has something to do with deaf-eyed ancestors.
So when you're building a wall in your house, your new wall, you only build it on the build today wall, the good day to build walls.
So you know the calendar right.
So the calendar you'll have a good day to cut your hair, there'll be a good day to build a wall, get married, whatever.
So with the Sokala.
So, for example, in architecture, you're about to build your wall, you will get the owner of the land.
You will do one and a half, one foot length and half a foot length away from where you're about to build the wall, dig a hole and in there they'll put gold and silver and a piece of white cloth and probably a chicken's head and various things.
All very symbolic to Bali, to the religion which is the Hindu dharma, which is slightly animistic in its original roots and then obviously very influenced by Hinduism.
A lot of animism throughout Indonesia.
I mean, it seems to be the core kind of religion.
It was definitely the basis of a lot before Islam came down, because, remember, you know the Majapahit I mean it was Buddhist, I mean look at Jogjakarta, I mean that's one of the biggest Buddhist monuments in the world.
And then it became Hindu, majapahit, right.
And then Islam came.
So, all the way from Malaysia coming down, scared the bejesus out of the Jogjakartens and they moved to Bali.
So, actually, if you really know that the Balinese aren't Balinese Interesting and Jogjakarta, okay, yeah, they came away at the time of the Red Crescent coming through Indonesia and the real Balinese, there's only two villages in Bali Bali, Agar they're called, which is Trunyan, which is the one on the lake with the skulls under the tree.
So there's okay, trunyan is Bali.
There's two villages Trunyan and Tengganan.
Tengganan is in East Bali.
We went to Tengganan yep.
And there's that amazing weaving that's kind of pre-died walking.
The weft is pre-died before they start weaving it, which is only Japan, india and there and then Trunyan.
So Trunyan, there is.
It used to be an inaccessible village.
They used to row to in a boat and they have a sacred tree and they literally, when the people in the village die, they just wrap it in a shroud, put it in one of those bamboo baskets like you see the pigs when they're going to market Put it there and shove that under the tree and that's it, and it doesn't smell and it just decomposes.
Okay, and that's it.
It decomposes, and when it's decomposed, it just keeps the skull, put it under the tree and then, imagine, throw the rest of it into the lake.
Trunyan, trunyan, t-r-u-n-y-n.
Where is that?
It's in Kintimani.
Okay, we're going to check that out.
Oh, that's amazing.
I mean, that's like really you stand with under that tree.
Very interesting energy.
And then all these skulls that are now like moss, covered in green, depending on the time.
I think it's become very touristy now.
So obviously you can get a motor boat and it's not like it used to be, which is hard to get to.
It used to be very and that's.
It used to be fabulous to travel.
There was absolutely no traffic and no people, tourists, right?
So, yeah, yeah.
So Trunyan said yes.
Going back to what I'm saying, bali Aga so those are the only true Balinese.
So they are two small, tiny people.
It's almost like the Red Indians being shoved into a reserve.
And the Majapahit came, the kingdom, so that came, and this is where Bali started to do all its amazing stone carving, wood carving, because that all came from the Majapahit.
So that's how we've got all this culture and nuance to, as we were saying, hinduism, because before, obviously, the Aga, bali Aga, were very animistic.
What is it about Bali that's kept you here for so long?
I think it's the energy.
I mean you just get off the plane, you start to go oh lovely.
Everyone says it's the Sheaman residence, where it's resonating here way higher than ever else, because the Sheaman residence is the resonance of the earth.
But you really feel it here, the people.
I think the energy, I think the fact that they pray twice a day really is noticeable in the vibration that Bali has.
Totally agree.
I mean, I got off the plane, I get back Saturday.
The first message I sent for you is that I'm already.
Just.
I already love being back and just stepped off the plane.
There's something about definitely the energy is actually probably the perfect word, but everything that goes into, that smells, the sounds, the people just the smells and the sounds, and that obviously not circle K, the lights of circle Ks and endless Pepitos.
It's definitely not that.
It's just an unfortunate byproduct of today's society.
Go to some good ceremonies.
I mean like the pure Chris ceremony, so obviously not the catch-act dance Chris ceremony that might do down south.
Go to a real one.
Go to some of these really interesting ceremonies, Like you know, the Sangyang trance, right.
Well, you get two girls standing there.
They're totally in trance, they're totally.
I mean, the other day with my mom, just before Nyappi, we rode because you know we would stayed at, we stayed in.
You know, here in Browar I drove up to Sesseb at Tanwright right, and now you've got all these Ogre Ogre's right.
So you do that kind of big, kind of round O, and as you come out, there's a ceremony just by a banyan tree, just before you go to the river.
And there there was.
You know there was.
Everyone was going into nutcase trances.
It was just electrifying.
Your hair stands on end and you suddenly write right, you see, because it's more of yeah, I mean, it's not somebody just going, nyappi, don't think you'd be trancy, no, no no, Well, I don't know, but I mean that we we saw.
You'd need to, you'd need to go, and really I think you feel it.
I think I think.
Well, we had that experience in Java.
We went and we visited Shaman and I got some photos there, but he kind of, I guess, demonstrated, but he was doing a ceremony with a young, a young man who went into this trance, started eating fire, and it was just, it was, it was visually, I guess, moving, but it's still like I'm thinking well, you know, how do I know that he's possessed, or how do I know that he's carrying a spirit?
It's like, well, you don't say but you do, you don't either, you don't, you can't prove that he's not Correct.
So so basically, that means an open question.
Yeah, it's like really, I think you have to really see it, feel it, believe it, to believe it.
You know, you suddenly go no.
Until you suddenly go no absolutely, and there's other things that happen, you know things that will come up, that you'll suddenly go okay, that's interesting.
That's interesting, yeah, but they can be put down to coincidence most of the time.
But that's why I'm saying because your son coming to you and your nanny saying things and you feeling that without it that's not that's not correct.
And then we move.
When I moved back because then I moved into another house for a few years, rented that house out, moved back and I actually flew to to Singapore the night we moved back in and my lovely nanny has been with me for 11 years she said, she said, oh, she said you missed them, they just left.
I said, who just left?
She said are the two lovely gentlemen that were here taking care of the house while we weren't in here?
And they said to me are your back?
We can go now.
Oh, so we don't need to get anyone to look after our dogs when we're awake.
No, no, the dogs on the spiritual level, the energy of the house, not the actual building.
They're not going to stop it from falling over in an earthquake, but no, that was really really interesting.
But you know, you have to be in Indonesia and I think, once you've been here as long as I have, which is 30 years now, 27 in Bali, it's I mean I can say I know, I know it exists and it's.
Whatever I say to you is not really going to change.
That's what I mean.
It won't change your mind until you experience it yourself, and there will be little things, because it'll just add, add, add, add, add and then suddenly there will be that extra drop of magic that just you go wow.
Yeah.
You know whether it's like this, the gorgeous healer in Cece, right, you want to have that big bell?
No, yeah.
So I took a friend of mine there.
She was about to get operated from a, from a stone, not a kidney stone, but something a gallstone.
Gallstone.
And I said get out of the hospital, we're going to go to see the healer first before you go, and do you know that?
So she came and we went to the healer and, yeah, he must have pressed, pressed, pressed, pressed, pressed, pressed, pressed, pressed, pressed, pressed, pressed, pressed, pressed, and she went, anyway, next day, no pain.
But anyway, at the same time I went, he said he said do you want to get healed?
I said no, no, no, I know I'm fine.
And he and he just held my hand.
He said stop with the coconuts.
Okay, I went.
Well, I had been drinking 600 millilitres of coconut milk I mean coconut water every day for the last three weeks and loving it and I'm.
It's not good for me.
I'm one of the.
They've done a kinesiology and I shouldn't be drinking the coconut water.
Oh, why was the coconut?
water I was just doing, drinking it.
Well, I don't know, I don't know for me, for some people it's just maybe not my makeup, my whatever.
And he just said stop with the coconut water.
Is that because you were carrying a bottle of coconut water?
No, no, no absolutely not.
I suddenly was going, maybe I smell a coconut, what is that?
No, no, no, no.
He just totally, totally knew.
Really super interesting.
Very interesting.
I mean, I find it very interesting and I'm open minded enough now I'm a little bit older to at least I am much more open minded than I used to be.
So I'm willing to receive.
I just haven't seen anything that's going to.
I think over time, you know, over time I mean I didn't, you know, I didn't believe in ghosts, all that.
I grew up in the house of the ghost and actually saw a ghost and told my mother about it when I was like three and I can't remember seeing that ghost, but anyway I did, because I ran downstairs I said, oh my, who's that lady with the ring?
No, no, no, no, no, it was nobody was there.
And and then I thought no, no, no, I don't see ghosts, because I can feel but I can't see, right, like like Indonesians can.
And till one time I was renting a house at the end of all, my last, near the river, and I said there was an embed lying in the bed.
I said something's looking at me, I turned the lights on and they're just sitting on the door.
Lintel was this kind of gray, smoky figure, almost like one of Lowry's paintings.
You know that, you know they're kind of matchstick man, but but more soft.
But it was almost like cloud, like smog, like like, just not, not with the face, just no, just the outline.
How many bottles of wine did you have the night before?
No, I hadn't.
No, trust me, trust me, listen.
So this is funny, this is funny.
So everybody told me that house was haunted and I hope to push it, push it anyway.
So the next day I go and I talk to my lovely housekeeper, yn.
She goes oh, there's an open drain coming straight up from the river.
So, okay, so I said okay.
So we put the pink rice and the yellow rice Everything has a significance in all the things they do and every little piece of that Chanang, you see where everything has a reason to balance Right.
So she puts that rice down there.
I go to Ibu Deo, I get some holy water.
Sprinkle the holy water.
Next day, open my, and it just had reduced to that, literally a much smaller size, much, much less intense darkness, like black.
It wasn't scary.
And then next day, gone and I said you know who was that?
He said, oh, there's a guy that committed suicide.
He fell in love with somebody who's a higher caste than him and he drowned himself in the river.
And my ex had seen this and all the staff had seen this and I just said, oh, you're all bullshitting me.
And then, till then you suddenly get oh, that was interesting, Kind of makes sense.
And it wasn't scary, I mean because it was just like he was curious.
I'm saying he, but you, I mean you know it's because it wasn't.
I mean it was a figure that looked like I don't know.
Wasn't a clear identity, identifiable, interesting?
Well, I'm sure Fee would love to talk to you for hours about that.
Let's go back to art I mean you talked about.
I know you're very, very keen on art.
You've obviously, you know, run essentially an art-ish magazine, right?
You feature a lot of artists in there.
You obviously have much to do with photography and you just go and enjoy art yourself.
What is, you know?
What is your thing with art?
Is it something that you have always been fascinated in?
Was it something that the magazine drove you to go and learn a little bit more about?
How do you see the Bali art scene in Indonesian art scene different to the?
I mean, I have lots of questions about this, but pick any of them.
I love art.
I love art because I'm really bad at it.
I mean, it's just something that fascinates me that people could be so talented at it.
I find that for me it's fascinating.
It's like watching somebody that can do something you can't do.
It's always like wow, you know, and creativity, I find.
And then the vision into their brain, I suppose, or whatever.
That is that kind of ethereal, spiritual, whatever part of that that comes through in art, Photography, because it takes me on a journey.
Photography just takes me transports, Like a good book can do.
You can just go, boom, you're gone, you know.
And really good photography can do that, you know.
And art, Indonesian art, incredible Indonesian art.
Bali art Good.
Now, there's so many styles, you see.
So there's Camus and style.
There's so many different styles that some I like and some I'm not that much of a fan of.
Maybe it's your styles, I mean, you know they've got the modern, the new, the new, the new artist, the old artist, so some of those styles absolutely adore Puto Badil, fabulous artist Mokkoi.
Have a couple of his pieces.
He was very best on Esha, so he was very influenced at one point by Esha and I love Esha, Just the way his mind worked.
That's crazy, right?
So Esha, the illustrated painter Gunawan, you know I mean Jogja, for art, to me is that's the nascenti Jogjakarta.
Is that like the?
ancient art spots of Indonesia.
Is it Without a doubt?
Without a doubt, that's where, all the well, they've got the art that's very trendy new age city that's been.
No, Jogja is the oldest city.
It's the sultans there.
It's the only once independent, basically even outlasted, kind of pre interim and post-Dutch.
They were always respected, the sultan was always respected, and that's possibly the part that one city, although it was kind of touched by the Dutch, was kind of allowed to be Indonesian.
I know what I meant was like new age as in.
They've added a lot of money pumped into that city to modernize it more.
No, no, no.
There's old money, old money.
So the sultan has loads of money, they've just built a new airport, but the art was very under Suharto, because it was a fascist regime.
They weren't allowed to really have an art voice as far as a critique of the system of the government.
Suharto obviously being, you know, was like Franco.
So art, freedom of expression within the art world was very suppressed, yeah, very suppressed.
And so when he passed away, then he got some brilliant artists coming in, you know the Indie guerrillas.
Susanna from Biasa is one of the the staunch supporters of Indonesian art.
What's your favorite medium paintings?
Photography, is it?
Oh, without a doubt, who's your favorite photographer?
Present company excluded.
Right, no right, I don't know, I couldn't tell you, I jump for different things.
I mean, you know, really, really.
Who do you go to?
I mean, I guess every issue is different depending on what type of images you need, but do you have like a call list that you, you know, repeat, kind of photographers you know you can use and trust, or are you you just going out there finding new photographers for whatever you, whatever you want in Asia?
I think in the old days we used to for fashion.
I think in the old days Nigel was really mainly part of that part of it, right, and they're being the kind of art director and the and and definitely in charge of that part of the content in fashion he would.
We've used many photographers actually, but we have consistently used two or three over a few years and then that kind of relationship kind of moved on to somebody else and on to somebody else and on to somebody else.
This one, this is Nadia.
So Nadia is Indonesian, so I think, this is the.
this is the first Indonesian photographer.
Okay, cool that we've used.
Nadia.
Nadia, he's, yeah, he's, he's this guy, so and he and I saw him on Instagram because he is, he's an amazing, he does amazing.
Photography for Eddo Huttabarat.
What's that?
Who's a?
Who's a fashion designer.
Okay, okay, Jogja.
Yeah, that's Nadia.
This is him.
That's him.
So this issue, I really loved it because you call it creator collective, and I was really thrilled to be able to meet Nadia, papermoon, their friends of mine from from Jogja.
Carter, their puppets, they make puppets, but huge puppets, like you know, massive, three, three meter tall puppets.
Papermoon Theater from Jogja.
And and then Nadia did his fashion shoot, and then we did the lovely Ketapoling which is, you know, the lovely Yasmin Okubo.
I mean, that's stunning, right, yeah, beautiful.
I like that.
It's outside so they're all Indonesians.
They they mainly didn't live in Bali.
Photography.
I mean it's obviously a interesting that you've kind of titled this creative collective, because you know Bali obviously is just seen in influx of creators, whatever you want to define that as digital nomads.
So when you said that that's how you yeah, creating havoc is what they do, yeah, I mean, I think.
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of creative people, just as there's a lot of people that are inspired to create, but maybe not with their own original idea.
To put it that way, give me an example A bit.
You know, I think a lot of people you know come out open a fashion brand and they'll open it and they'll, you know, make three sizes, and it'll practically be, and they'll get the shop next door to the next shop and the shop will look equally the same, you know because they know that or they feel that it's you know it's sales, and then they're on Etsy and they're on this and they're on.
So I mean you know it's you get.
You hear from the money or the creativity, but you know, I mean I think you know everyone creates in their own way?
I don't think there is.
I actually have a t-shirt I bought recently that says you know, creativity is actually just a result of you know multiple inspirations that you've had either in your conscious, subconscious, or they bring into a face.
Yeah, basically like a prism, right, you know?
Just you know.
Get the rainbow and it come out with a white light.
You know.
But it's like when you find like I always say as well there's difference between originality and uniqueness, because to be truly original means that no one else has done it, which is so rare you can be unique, but you still, you know formula of different inspirations.
But you know, you can definitely see, you know, I know what you mean.
I mean I meet a lot of people here and newly kind of found creators certainly.
Which is fantastic.
It works.
I mean, if we look back to a lot of people that came here in the 70s, they came here and they had nothing else to do and they started making jewelry and became some amazing jewelry people.
You know, jean-françois Fischel right, he was just incredible.
Julia and Paul Robb, he didn't make clothes.
You know, he made rolling papers famous.
I mean, that's what he did.
He invented, he invented.
Well, he put the $100 bill or the $1 bill onto rolling papers and the rainbow onto rolling papers back in the 70s.
Do you worry about being unique with something like this that's so kind of prominent in its publication?
Do you worry about that?
Or you just make what you make and you put it out there, Because the magazine market the publishing market is.
I never worry about that because I suppose because I've been here for 27 years and I speak Indonesian and I have all the opportunities to meet people or see things and then I go and find those people.
So I'd probably have a cooked remont of crazy ideas and I would go for it.
Things flash to me, like when I saw his stuff Narius Narius, photos with Ed or Hukabara I was like that's the guy I want, and so then I.
Nowadays it's so easy.
You just go to Instagram and send them a message.
In the old days you'd have to try and get a phone number.
Do you know somebody who knows them?
And it was much more complicated, much more complicated, right?
Fax machines.
Fax machines, but I guess but back to what we talked about photography Photography for me, because it just tells.
For me it tells more of a tale.
Travel photography absolutely love it.
Travel photography things like people that take pictures of Cuba, india and you can travel without the difficulty, right and the cost and then you get to travel to all those amazing places that you wouldn't be able to get to on your own.
Or photography in India Indian photos, travel photography about India incredible.
What fascinates you about travel photography is the people, or is it the aesthetics landscapes, street scenes.
Usually it would be architecture Architecture, for me would be historical architecture.
Well in.
India's got Dubai wouldn't be my go-to travel photography.
You know, I would W any of those.
I mean, it would be Argentina.
For me it would definitely be either street scenes or an architecture.
Budapest, I mean.
Look at that gem of a place.
Have you been to Budapest?
Oh, wonderful.
I was there three months.
I stayed in the Gillette hotel, so that was just like Europe, oh and you can walk everywhere, so we're missing.
my first exhibition right now actually is today, tomorrow.
You have an exhibition.
Yeah, not my own, I'm just being featured in a multi-one.
In a multi-one.
Yeah, I just couldn't make it with my work schedule.
Yeah, I mean Venice, italy.
Right, you see, I don't know what it's made for.
I did one weekend in Rome and a couple of days in Milan.
Architecture of Florence and you're just Tuscany generally, the wine scene and the hills and the architecture and the people and the coffee and the art.
The art scene is just ridiculous.
It's just overloaded on beautiful centre.
I mean it's a beautiful overload on sensorial right.
Or there's food, or that's why I like Bali as well.
It's just the sensory overload with everything.
Bali.
Going up north.
You must go up north, you have to head north.
North is beautiful.
Go up the Pupuan road, it's just stunning, with all the rice paddy fields and there's one valley.
And travel, travel, you must travel out of this.
Oh, we have ancor.
There are a few corners of Bali we haven't quite been to yet, right.
But yeah, we're making our way.
We're making our way around.
I mean, we've only been here probably six months of the year that we've actually lived here, so it's kind of trying to give ourselves a little bit of leeway with that, but yeah, we're working on it, still waiting for waterfalls.
We're working Way too crowded.
The influencer scene is as frustrating as the content creator scene here, but oh and dangerous.
I mean, you know, falling over backwards and killing yourself just to get the selfie at the waterhole, or the blowhole of Nisidua, or something.
Well, now there are companies that actually were created for influencers, to get influencer shots for Instagram.
So oh, so the influencer guide.
Yeah, guide yeah.
So they'll pick people up at the airport and give them a week's tour of Bali all the hotspots for their influencer photos.
Like kill me now.
But that is.
I mean it's a funny.
It's a funny and unique and new kind of a job.
Be a section segment of people, society, yeah, and you can really condemn it right Because it's a job.
It's the way a lot of people earn the money.
It's just the way.
And it's basically a magazine page on their page, right, yeah, but the problem is it brings people into a country where they don't need to respect the culture they should, but they just come in to use it for.
Hellbenton getting to that swing with the red dress.
And unfortunately that's just exacerbating the whole.
So that's not the kind of travel photography, although I love some influences photography, especially Iceland.
Come on, it's being overdone.
Now though.
But to go, I think I mean for me to go and go and see the Northern Lights and jump on one of those boats and see icebergs.
Travel for me would be just.
We had a trip to see the Orcas in November 2020 that we were so excited about in Norway and obviously COVID happened.
We cancelled that.
But yeah, we need to get there.
Lovely, beautiful part of the world.
People there are lovely.
But yeah, what was I saying?
Travel photographers and influences yeah, travel photography.
I mean, there are some just incredible photographers out there.
We travel photography, and that is a saturated market in itself.
And now there's Yukon AI right.
Oh well, that's going to be my next question when does the Yak magazine fit with AI?
Is AI going to be kind of a big part of this?
I mean because you can generate images, generate copy, make anything up that you want to make up edit design, is that?
Have you even thought about that?
Is that?
Possibly right Copy edit possibly.
I mean, I'm not sure that their style of editing is really that good, I don't know.
I mean chat GTP, it's kind of Chat GTP.
I think it's super useful if you give it the right input.
Right, you have to give it the right Prompt Prompt.
I've definitely recommended it to many of the PR people from hotels because they used to send me such interesting newsletter.
I'm going to call it interesting Because you just wouldn't know where to start to try and edit.
You just have to like I mean you couldn't unravel what they're trying to say.
So I definitely recommended them to use it, absolutely so, before you send me a newsletter, use chat GTP and then send me something I can work with, because otherwise it was getting very hard.
And to this, and now of course everything is way.
I mean, you know, chat GTP.
It's like how many more adverbs and adjectives can you shove in a sentence?
Yeah, it's like you can read a whole paragraph and you could, you know, nestled and whatever it's, everything it's nestling everywhere.
It's like, geez, how can it nestle?
It's flat.
Make it more literal it's flat, it's flat.
You can't nestle on flats.
You know, it's a paddy field, it's flat, nestled in the paddy.
I mean it's like, but anyway, but you know, at least you can, you can unpick that and rewrite it, and then you rewrite it to your style and add a few words With photography and images.
I imagine it's.
We wouldn't.
I don't think so.
No, god, absolutely not.
I don't think so.
It's nice to hear.
No, not images Writing, possibly because at the end of the day, writing and it depends Obviously.
I think we'd do both.
I think probably a lot of the advertising sponsored writing, we would use AI.
And maybe the sponsors would provide AI images, because I think that's the next step, or probably the first sector of photography industry to be I don't think they would.
I mean when you say, how would you do an AI image of your own hotel bedroom, surely it's just easier to take the shot You're going to have to take the shot.
I mean how would you generate an AI image of your own bathroom?
Well, what you could do is you could get an initial photo and just keep that in there.
And then you go plug that in and say put some flowers in the corner, make it different colour, do some more dramatic lighting, all that kind of stuff.
But yeah, I mean.
But then that's photo editing, sweetie, that's not that stuff.
Yeah, but it costs and it takes longer.
Mid-journey is like five minutes and free, essentially, but I think more like even a lot of fashion photos.
Fashion photos, because you're going to say it's so much money.
You can put Milan in the back and then Lake Como in the other one, and then Dada and have him sitting down and turning or parallel images, like some photos of some sneakers, some shoes.
Me personally, absolutely not.
I mean probably because my creativity isn't great and then the fashion photographers is, so I wouldn't be using AI.
No, I mean more with sponsors, I think, people who want to advertise.
Let's say, you want to advertise a pair of Nike trainers.
It wouldn't be in the YAC because Nike doesn't exist here.
Our sponsors are only ever connected to Bali and the people that we're in the magazine only ever connected to Bali.
But just an example as a sponsor In terms of photography, not necessarily the YAC, but photography.
That's definitely a sector I think will start to erode.
I think that's Especially as they save money and then they can change the tick to blue red, put whatever they want on it, put Michael, whoever's shoe it is, and whatever.
I know I think that's going to be interesting.
So, yes, I mean that's tough for anyone in that industry.
It's like anything, the industries will.
A lot of industries will change.
Except you've got to understand when you do that there's no backstory, there is no mise en scène, there's no stylist, so all you have is that one shot of flat.
No more fantasy.
But also you've got no, you've got zero content to go with that photo.
So I think definitely I think it'd be a mix of both, I think definitely a mix of both that you will have the product shots for the catalogs.
I think for jobbers we'll lose out in catalog shots but not in fashion shoots.
I don't think so, because where's the backstory?
Unless you create the backstory?
And same with travel photography and things like that.
It's that a lot of the images are based off the experience, the process, the story of that place, the people, whatever.
Anyway.
I think with AI, I think the more it learns, the more it learns, the more it does hook into.
Today's age of internet, it's just going to be hard to know what's AI and what's not.
It'd be nice if there was the global law it has to have an AI watermark, such and such or whatever photo.
It's got that watermark that you cannot remove, and that would be nice.
That's what I think cryptography comes into, with the blockchain and those kind of networks that can have unquestionable proof about authentication.
So that's a different conversation.
Tell us a little bit about yourself, sophie.
If I was to ask you something like if you could choose any one dinner guest to have at your table, alive or dead, who would it be?
Dr Lawrence Blair.
Oh, without a doubt I definitely want to meet him.
Without a doubt.
I mean just fascinating.
I grew up in Ireland.
We had Peter Sellers living next door and everyone goes to these.
Oh, I must be so interesting to live next to some Most of these people actually because they're actually very quiet at dinner and they have to be in a character to be interesting.
So some people, a lot of people, say, oh, I'd like to be with that person.
But basically, if ever you want to sit next to somebody who's a dinner guest, who's an actor, they're not usually the people you think they are, they're usually just not.
So I always tend to go for you know, a people I know and B people.
It's a nice answer.
You know people that lived and loved you know, as opposed to moved into a character, which most actors obviously do.
Yep, what about kind of what brings you joy?
What would be a perfect day for you?
Having a plane ticket to get a Cuba.
So Cuba you mentioned, it was like a bucket list destination.
I haven't been.
I speak Spanish right, because I grew up in Spain.
So, yes, it's definitely.
But I travel as a bucket list because I've been here for 20 years with deadlines, always deadlines, meetings, deadlines, meetings, deadlines, meetings, deadlines, meetings, you know, every three months and up until COVID, and it's just like you know.
So this part of that, you know, putting the yak, you know, just to move into dormancy for a second, is also not only for me to move.
My mom here is just for me to go and kind of shake off my deadlines and not have any, and you know, and literally not be worried about that, you know, because you know you're always thinking ahead.
I always got to talk to him and say your whole brain is always focused on the next yak, you know so.
So I kind of just want to go.
Just deliver it yourself.
Absolutely, you know, and you know, I mean it's such a strong brand and let the world unfold and let's you know, and then let's see how it would, you know, come back, you know, once mum's here and all that, and I've, you know, cleared my head a bit, and then, and then you know, kind of reconvene.
Reconvene.
So Okay, hold that thought.
In international school because he was too young to go to Montessori.
I liked the up until six, the way of teaching of Montessori, Mary Montessori, who's Italian, so I liked that.
But after six you know, if you look into, if you look into the history of anyone, you know that really got anywhere.
Very few of them went to Montessori up until 18.
So then I put him into the Changi Community School, the CCS School.
Bali is super difficult as a good educational point because a lot of the teachers just come here for their two years.
They do two years here, two years Vietnam, two years this.
So it kind of lacks that, that the deep rootedness of this teacher has been here for 30 years.
You know that kind of.
You know that art, you know that goes, that moves with you every year.
That geography teacher or that history teacher you might either love or hate, but you know there is that consistency and and the style of teaching.
So you know different teachers have very different styles and I think it'd be quite confusing as you grow up.
Very much so you know.
Then I remember his handwriting now is shite, but and that's totally because at Montessori they did joined up writing and they forced him to unjoin it at Changi Community School.
Why.
And I don't know.
I mean I didn't even realize this was going on, right, because you know, because you know you don't kind of like look over everyone's shoulder and then and he's five, so he's not telling me, so I didn't, you know, I didn't really know and I think you know at that time you know we're talking about, you know who was like, you know, so what would be now 2008,?
He would have been six or seven and yeah, I mean it wasn't a great education, but I was here, my work was here.
They were still finding their feet.
As far as the school, even though it's super expensive, everything came home on a photocopy.
I couldn't understand how can you be as expensive as my boarding school and I used to get books there and I just get a little feticopies I used to get.
I didn't really get on with the school.
Okay.
You know I found it.
I found, you know I thought they could have done better, but it was a young school, you know.
I mean I, you know I suppose I come from an English background.
I had a governess to the age of nine, went for one term to one boarding school, left to have two more governesses and went back to Sherbin when I was 12.
So I've had a great education.
Sherbin School for Girls, I mean, it started back in the 1800s.
It was like solid.
We had amazing equipment biology labs, chemistry labs, dance halls, home economics, everything.
And then, of course, you know, then you come to CCS and it's, and it's literally it's very much like prefab.
So I think the education was a bit like that too Hard.
I think nowadays, with this new school they've come out in New, I know, I think that's really exciting.
I loved agreed school, but my son said absolutely no way he wouldn't want to go to.
You know, way too many creepy crawlers in the middle of the jungle, right, you know so.
But right now he's studying business studies and mediation in in in a college in Melbourne and I sent him to Melbourne.
Actually he went to McKinnon in Melbourne from the age of 15, 14 and three quarters to 18.
And throughout his life.
So for the last 20 years you've had Yack has basically been your full time gig.
You've been.
you know, yeah, he was, he was up to 2003 and he was born in 2001.
When?
If you bring this back, then is that, do you think you will?
You'll go back to working on it full time, or is there an option for you to bring someone else?
Yeah, no, no, I think I think I'd definitely bring someone else in and I would like much more to to suggest ideas, you know, or suggest people you know.
I think my role should be much more suggestion.
I think that you know definitely my mindset.
I'm about to be 60 next year, right?
So to keep appealing to a readership, one needs to not be me anymore.
Hire an influencer.
Yeah if I know.
Yes, we are the original influencer.
You are the original influencer.
That's the tagline for this episode.
The original influencer?
The first.
I think as times change and as different tastes and habits and needs and eccentricities of other people come through from the younger generation, it needs to have a different focus.
Plus, I wouldn't know anything about it, I mean, you know.
Yeah, it's got to be a point where you Well, I'm just distanced from that yeah, disconnected with that, I mean.
I really I mean, yeah, I'm just distanced.
You know I'm not on, I don't tweet, tweet ex, tweet, ex ex.
You know I've never been on TikTok.
I mean, god forbid, oh God, what I find is really interesting, because in China they're showing people lots of educational TikTok things and then dumbing us down in the West.
I think that's rather smart.
So no, I mean, I think it's time for me to kind of like go travel, you know, go and see the world through my eyes and not through the photographer's eyes.
Wonderful, so yeah, so I'd definitely like to consult, but I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't be doing it full time.
Get yourself to Cuba.
No, no, no, I don't think you know you need new people.
I mean, you know you need new people.
You need people that you know.
I don't want to be the oldest person in the room when we get invited to the marketing.
Yeah, thanks to all the you know publishing companies and it's 15, 20-year-olds or 30-year-olds and that is me.
You know twice the age.
It's like no, I just think it's not.
It's not you know.
What kind of advice would you give to that younger generation that wants to get into the publishing industry and do something like this?
Was it one or two biggest pieces of advice?
I think to anyone that wants anything in life is become a salesperson.
Whether you want to be an artist or whatever, basically become a salesperson.
Trust in the passion you've got, but become a salesperson.
How do you become better at sales?
I don't know.
Please tell me I need to get better Experience, experience, how do you become better at sales?
I suppose number one you've got to have a product somebody wants.
So you need to go and find the person that wants the product.
You know, find the niche, find the niche, find the gap.
Have they got a gap?
Yeah, then you go see them.
They'll need it right.
Solve a problem.
Yeah, yeah, all right.
We, you know, or you're promoting them, you know you're their window.
I mean, I think you know, if it's something like this, you know you've got to be the best window you can be and then people will come.
But if your window doesn't have the right lighting, you know it doesn't have the right, it's not on the right street, it's not, you know, it's not distributed, probably not presented properly, then less people want to be in your window.
I mean, you look at how much do people pay for being inherits at Christmas or self-ridges?
at Christmas Millions.
Just to be on that window.
Why?
Because it's in the right location, it's beautiful, it's a whole story.
People will hang out and it gives their brand a kind of you know kind of snobbability or something.
Well, inherits have built that brand into what it is right, so yeah.
So, and I think that's what you know as a magazine, if you want to do a magazine or any kind of marketing for people, you know it's a promotion for companies.
I think with the YAC, the positive thing about the YAC is the size, you know.
I mean it's so much more, so much more elegant size like that than to see hit that photo on here, right, I mean it's, and the shine of it and all that.
So I'm like that with print, just generally prints, and yeah, yeah, vinyl, vinyl and newspapers.
I mean, when did I stop reading newspapers?
God, how old is it?
going.
I don't see any newspapers anymore.
Yeah, but I grab one if I see it.
Yeah, a Jakarta post, or even if it's in Indonesia, I'll try and read it.
So it's always this balance, isn't it?
You don't want to be outdated, you want to stay trend, but you also want to be true and authentic and real.
It's a different, difficult balancing act.
I mean for us in the Yak.
These pages don't shine right, so there's no reflections.
No gloss.
You could sit next to your pool, get a Tantan with your cocktail and just quickly go through the pages and it's got a nice weight to it.
You know whereas this is.
You know you don't want to get it wet, da-da-da-da-da-da, and it's like nah it's dead.
Where are they distributed?
Why do you mainly sell them to Ah two?
periplasque, remedian all that.
And then, yeah, limousines, executive lounges, posh places, penthouses this because we went from being quarterly to by annual.
So this copies out until November, so we distribute, continuously, distribute throughout November.
Right now we've really pushed our distribution to Jakarta, jogja, surabaya.
We've always sent to Singapore and Batam, now we're going to as well because there's more Indonesians coming down, whereas before, you know, we used to have it like Hong Kong first class line, jakarta Pacific, france, lufthansa and all that and we could never get on on inboard or on board because it's too heavy On board the plane.
Yeah.
I always wanted it to go on board, but it's it used to be 800, 800 grams.
They removed one olive from first class or something Across an airline and they took it like, lightened the plane by 400 kilos or something, Remained them a lot of money yeah just one olive out of that.
You know whatever it was, you know and saved them, saved them, saved them petrol.
And yeah, the other day I sat next to like a hugely, morbidly obese man who probably paid the same amount that I did Just frustrated me.
But that's a different conversation.
Here's a tradition we have on the on the show we, we.
I know you're familiar with these conversation cards, but I'll ask you to pick one and then I'll put you on the spot, if you just choose.
Don't look at it.
Yeah, sorry, don't look at it.
Don't look at it Okay.
Okay, that doesn't let you cheat.
This is shocking.
Okay, if there was one singular idea that had the most profound impact on your life, what would it be?
Idea, so not product Idea.
I guess a product is an idea, right.
I'm not sure what's the most singular idea.
Sorry, could you read that again?
Idea, see, I think it's more ephemeral than that.
So, look, there was one singular idea that had the most profound impact on your life.
What would it be?
Freedom, being able to be free, I mean yeah.
What does define freedom?
Leaving home.
I can leave home.
That's freedom to you being able to move wherever you want to move to.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, that's the most singular, I think, for anyone really, mobility, you know, freedom, freedom.
Yeah.
I think as a product I'm just going to be a pair of skis, right, I ski, I used to ski a lot, so that to me, if it was an idea as a product, I mean to have invented skis and ski boots and anything.
Skiing was just you must miss it.
I haven't done it in 20 something years, okay, so It'd be interesting when you do do it In my brain.
I do a lot, I dream I do.
So yeah, I dream I do, but yes and no.
I think you know I do no exercise, so I'd be in real trouble.
Well, when you go to Cuba, you've got to go.
I'd go down the baby when I go.
Oh my God, I could need to go to the bar.
Yeah, his tire is.
Well, when you go to Cuba, you have to go through the US, right?
So just stop in the US, go like winter time, right.
Yeah, and then you can combine both.
You can see that Japan right.
Yeah, Japan, I mean Japan's great, but you don't have the up-pray ski that you have in the US or Europe.
Spain, no, Spain, that's.
I mean, I was skiing in the south of Spain, so that was the best up-pray ski ever, 5pm till 5am in the morning, cool.
And then you just get up and go and teach again, you just be, with it and on it.
Yeah, unfortunately we're not as young as we used to be no, no, no, no indeed.
I'm going to finish with one that I picked.
Yeah, I was going to say what was one for you, what was one of those ideas that?
Well, it depends if it means your own idea or someone else's idea.
If there was one single idea that had the most, yeah, the most profound impact, I would say Photography.
I mean, it's not an idea, but it was an idea that I would give it a go, and it's changed my life.
And even this podcast, the idea to have this podcast.
I'm absolutely loving it and it's made.
I think even in the short time that we've been doing it, it's definitely made me a better person.
Another idea, to move to Bali, could say the same thing.
It's made us better people, even in the short time that we've spent here.
So I mean there's a lot.
I mean the most.
City living versus village living.
Yeah, I mean, I'm not a city who gave you your first camera, or did you buy it?
yourself.
My parents, I mean you were talking Kodak disposable cameras.
You know the old wind click and then go and get them developed.
That was my first kind of.
This is kind of cool, but I didn't really take to it.
When I was that young, I bought my first camera, my first proper digital camera, in Tokyo, bought a Canon.
It was called a KISS X7i.
Actually, I think it might have been with you, for you didn't know what I was buying.
It's just like I just wanted a digital camera.
So, yeah, I've always been proud of that.
I mean, my parents gave me so many things, but in terms of photography, I bought my first proper camera.
So would you say yourself taught or did I do?
that.
Yeah, I did one Photography wise.
I did one workshop.
I didn't do it, I participated in one workshop, which was the catalyst that made me Well I was still a hobbyist really, but made me kind of an inquiry into the skills of photography, towards, okay, I actually want to do this as a hobby, routinely learn more about it.
But yeah, since then just self-taught.
Obviously, Because I mean your portrait's incredible, your lighting's amazing, I mean, and obviously you're doing portraits for people here in Bali like families and kids and Yep and things like that, as well as your culture.
Yes, we have to be careful with that, certainly since the whole kind of crackdown on photographers here.
So the studio stuff I can only direct.
So we have.
I have someone, an Indonesian girl, who's essentially the photographer.
She comes in, does the studio shoot.
So I'm not legally allowed to do that.
But the personal, the passionate project.
I mean.
I think the stylist is the one that makes the shoot look fabulous.
So, absolutely, and I can direct, so I can pose them and look after them and help with the photography, but she's the one that actually presses there Right.
Yeah, so.
How lucky for her.
She must be learning a lot.
She is, and, yeah, she's great, she's absolutely brilliant.
Yeah, she learns a lot.
We're doing some One of these, some workshops as well, which again is a kind of tricky area.
It's like, how much can I do on those workshops?
Can I teach or can I just direct?
So there's all this kind of stuff we're figuring out.
It is right.
And exhibitions, exhibitions, Any exhibitions come out.
I just.
It's been on my list for so long and I don't know enough people in that world yet to kind of tap into and try and go and get exhibited other than just kind of outreach, just cold calling, but I'd love.
I think some of your stuff looked great in the four seasons.
They used to have a beautiful little gallery.
Oh, did they Four seasons?
Yeah, Everyone used to lay us right at the cocktail party and it used to be art, not photography, that they used to do.
But yeah, no, I'll put.
I'd love to see your stuff in a gathering, in a small gallery and something just beautiful, because you've got some gorgeous images, Thank you.
We'll just start later to release a new series that we did in Siliah, south Sulawesi, the Bajau people, and it wasn't 100% what I wanted, because I wanted to get them the real indigenous Bajau in Sulawesi, in their still houses, literally living on the sea, living in their boats.
We couldn't quite make it work.
Yeah, cgt, you couldn't quite make it work logistically, but what we found actually was almost better in Siliah, beautiful, beautiful island ruined by a trash problem, but that's another conversation.
But the photography we had there, the people were amazing.
So I'm just at the moment I'm building and I want to do this longer project on Indonesia.
There's so much I want to go and do and I don't feel like I'm ready for any type of.
I'd love to have a book in a few years' time.
I'd love all of these images Because behind all these images, I'm trying to piece together a certain type of cohesion that's going to tell this narrative, tell the story of basically Indonesia and all of the culture that lies within every little place, all of their history, all of the movement, all of the wars, all of the types of people that have moved across various parts of Indonesia, the trans migration thanks to Suharto.
Absolutely, he pushed people.
He said take your two kids so you can't take more than two.
Your husband and wife move to Sulawesi or move to different islands.
It's called trans migration.
So his aim was to repopulate different places.
Got it.
Well, I guess you can see that.
Move Christianity around a bit, move the Hindus in, move the Muslims down yeah, so trans migration was very interesting and I went to this incredible island, blitung.
Blitung, it's quite famous.
There's this Andrea, who's an amazing book writer and film that called Las Katpalangi, which is like the rainbow mafia.
Rainbow mafia, the rainbow mafia.
It's just about a poor school and a rich school and the kids and how they interact.
It's a very interesting film and you go there right.
So this island is like halfway to Singapore, in the middle of nowhere.
It's called Blitung, and it's called Blitung as an aluminium mining that Australia came and totally decimated.
That's why their aluminium company is called Blitung.
Okay.
Anyway.
So you go there and suddenly you get this You're driving around in the middle of nowhere and suddenly you suddenly come around the corner and you've got two Balinese gates right With PLN, sponsored by PLN.
So you've got the PLN side two Balinese gates and that's the Balinese encampment and it was just like what is this?
And they said, oh, this was part of the transmigration.
So I mean Bali kind of when it goes abroad is so obvious, right.
Yeah, so distinct from any other the gates, the gates, it's just, oh, you exactly know it's Bali.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so, yeah, so we've got lots of I mean my gosh Indonesia to travel.
It's huge.
It's kind of overwhelming and at the moment we can only do bits at a time.
Right, I'd love to just get a boat.
Someone pay for the boat.
The Mentaways.
You've got to do the Mentaways Already done.
You've done the Mentaways Right.
Where is she?
There's a few spots around.
I'd like to go back because when I went there for five years ago, I was I feel like I'm much better photographer now than I was learned a lot, so I'd love to go back, if possible, to the same family I visited, because they were fucking brilliant.
But what a fascinating.
And there are many types of I don't know what you'd call them like cohorts of cultures that are like that right that I don't even know yet.
And that's so I'm.
You know, I'm super excited to the Badui.
The Badui is one the Badui outside Jakarta, I think it is.
Badui, I did that before the Mentaways.
Actually they're a little bit-.
You didn't get into them to the bit inside, did you?
I did?
Oh, no, no, no, because they have-.
Inner and outer, yeah they had, yeah, inner and outer.
I got into the.
I was obviously in the outer, couldn't get into the inner and I was like, um, yeah, I need to get into the inner.
So, yeah, there's another place I need to go back to Quite touristy, whereas the Mentaways not.
I mean, you know, to get there is three days travel, you know, and six hours on a canoe and all that kind of stuff with loads of photography equipment weighing 100 kilos.
You definitely have to talk to Dr Lawrence Blair because he did that basically in the 70s.
They actually bought, I don't know, they were taking a VA camera, you know like, oh, I don't know what's just incredible in the 70s.
They had to wait for the trade winds in.
Singapore.
They had to wait three months or something to wait for the trade because nobody had engines.
You know, they were literally the trade winds.
It's incredible history he's got.
Yeah, that's proper traveling.
Yeah, yeah, proper traveling, Pioneer stuff.
Yeah Well, Sophie, what a pleasure.
What an absolute pleasure.
Thank you so much.
I am gonna leave with one question, leave you with one question and put you on the spot again, but this is one I picked out earlier because I kind of like it and with your, I guess, experience in Bali especially, but with being a successful business woman, the question is what do you promise to do to make our world a better place?
What I promise to do is hopefully it's something that we're doing consistently and now throughout our inspire and support people that are doing amazing things, like Gary Benchkeeb, who's doing make a change world, which is his river cleanup.
You've got the eco mantra boys, anything of any group or any single person that's really doing something to improve, definitely mainly on nature, the eco problem we've got Do you know, joseph, the recycling little kid, right?
So this is what I do in the background and I will always continue to do this because I think it's important because me personally I don't think so but I think to inspire and support, to really support mentally, support as well and always look for opportunities and pass them over and find, always connect people.
There was this guy I can't remember and he was.
There was a casting call for kids to go and do a workshop with him in a documentary in Europe and the casting called a finish spending my god-on to Instagram and I saw it.
It was like Joseph, god, you did it, you did it.
So I got on and I had this conversation with him and I said no, no, he's Indonesian.
You need this problem to be brought to Indonesia, so you need this Indonesian kid, I don't know Anyway.
So he got a call and he's part of the documentary which is coming out in about six months, all stuff like.
I think it's important that everyone, if there's an opportunity and you can match that opportunity with somebody who's doing something good, it's hugely important.
For example, I was in a women's economic forum in Jakarta.
This Italian lady came in and she said we've got a grant and we need to get this grant promised by the 21st of September and it's a grant.
I'm looking for Indonesia and I said, okay, it can match it.
They've got the 14 things they're looking for.
They want to do recycling and composting and all that bang.
Immediately put them together.
So I think what I promised you is always be on the lookout to who I meet, find out what they do and if I can match that up to somebody who can benefit from that or they can support that.
That's the mission, the aim, and I think it should be always look for that opportunity to who you can match and assist.
That's hopefully what I do.
Well, you definitely do, and it's been educational as always talking to you, and very inspirational.
Please keep doing what you do, Thank you.
You're inspiring many, many, many people, just not in Bali, but, I'm sure, throughout Indonesia and whoever else is watching this and following you.
So thank you very much it's been an absolute privilege.
Thanks, Westia.