Print's Not Dead: (F)Art Page - THE.DIRTY.DOGS.

Earlier this winter, former Method senior photog and all-around incredible shooter, Matt Georges released his self-published photo book, THE.DIRTY.DOGS. Featuring the work of a selection of snowboarding's most influential lensmen, T.D.D. is a carefully curated 190 pages of snowboard photo mastery. We featured a conversation with Matt on the making of the book on the "(F)Art page" of issue 15.4 and our full discussion with him is included below, along with a handful of bonus images from the making of instant classic. There are only a couple handfuls of THE.DIRTY.DOGS. copies left! If you haven't snagged one yet, better act real fast!

Tell us a bit about your background and work in print?

- I’ve been working in the industry about 11 years now, starting as an intern at Freestyler Skateboarding & Snowboarding Magazine in France when I was 18. They made me an offer to stay and become art director, a position where I could also take some photos and go on trips from time to time, so that was a great start for me! Kind of living the dream! I met Eric Bergeri and Vianney Tisseau from Snowsurf (two big snowboard photographer legends) and was working with them on both mags. They took me under their wing and taught me a lot! Two years later I became photo editor at Method and worked there for around four years. I also became one of the senior photographers and figured out that it was way better to travel the world and shoot snowboarding than just sit in a damn chair selecting photos from other photographer’s adventures. It was a really good time and we had a sick crew in the office. Lots of creativity and great people to work and party with. It was just at this analog/digital transition, so the job was also really interesting. I was getting big boxes of slides and b&w prints as well as the first digital files. You could see clearly at that time who was ready for this new era and who wouldn’t be able to adapt to this new workflow in the near future. I then moved on to a position as senior photographer at Onboard Magazine, where I continue to work today for Factory Media, in addition to juggling other work in the art direction, graphic design and book publishing realms. It’s good to have a few hats and diversity on a daily basis.

How has T.D.D. been received thus far? Are people ready to realize the value of physical printed material once again and move away from strictly digital consumption?

- Since it is self-published with no help from any brands, I was completely stressed out that nobody would ever spend a euro on this project but it looks like I was totally wrong. In less than a month, the Deluxe Version completely sold out. I guess people are still ready to buy books and printed material. Digital will never replace a good physical book paired with a nice coffee. That’s for sure! Anyway, I have pretty much reached my goal and could reinvest 100% of the money to produce THE.DIRTY.DOGS.Volume.Two. in 2015, along with other little DIY projects. T.D.D. also won the Best Photo Book Award at the International Mont Blanc Photo Festival this summer in Chamonix, so that was a really nice recognition from a pure snowboarding audience!

You've got an all-star cast of contributors for this project. Are than any written editorial pieces included or is it strictly photos?
 
- At first I only wanted to have photos but then I saw the Nike movie, Never Not pt. 2, that Joel Muzzey and Per-Hampus Stalhandske made and really liked their interviews and the way they were done. There were some features and stories I really wanted to include in this first volume, like the Antarctica adventure with Xavier De Le Rue and Lucas Debari shot by Tero Repo. It really killed me when I saw some major magazines run only six or eight pages of this crazy trip. I mean, those guys crossed Cape Horn to ride on icebergs, bringing back sick memories and photos and it only makes a small feature with landscape vignettes. Come on! Tero’s diary is included as well, which is an intense and interesting read. I have been a big fan of Oli Gagnon’s photos for a while, so there is a portfolio from him, a raw selection from Swiss photog Yves Suter together with a discussion about the art and photo worlds and his different approach to snowboard photography, a polaroid feature from Darrell Mathes and a photo essay with Torah Bright from the last official session at Snow Park (RIP) in N.Z.  It was also Olympic time and Terje was being interviewed all over the place on pretty much the same topic—those fucking O. Games. So I spoke with him about just having a discussion on normal things - life, kids, snowboarding - and he was keen to do it. I have infinite respect for him and am honored to have him in this first adventure. The last page in the book is called “Fairy Tales From The Road.” It’s basically just random snowboard related stories from the road that we usually share after riding, around the table while drinking beers. This first one is about Gigi and his broken nose in NZ. The next one will be probably about an AK mission that turned very bad with the Absinthe crew.

I also wanted to collaborate with a graphic designer or illustrator and I teamed up with Lucas Beaufort for this first volume. I sent him over 10 b&w prints and he drew his cool characters all around. I’m not really into words, and English is my second language, so I wrote to Muzzey to see if he was interested in helping with the copy for THE.DIRTY.DOGS. To make this whole thing happen I just contacted each guy, one by one, and explained my project to see if they were keen to contribute. All the contributors gave me the opportunity to build something out of all those amazing shots and I’d like to thank them all a lot!


The book has a lot of unique features, from the cover down to the binding. Describe these features a bit. Did you put the whole thing together by hand?

- For this first volume I wanted to have it all in black and white and have a zine, DIY feel. I didn’t want to make a random coffee table book. I was more interested in creating a “book-object,” if you can call it that. First, I made test prints with a Xerox printer but wasn’t really happy with the result, especially with how the snow looked so burnt out all the time. It’s really hard to print snow and to get a good result with Xerox photocopy. I still wanted to have this DIY process so I took some binding courses and started working on print costs. There are so many possibilities when binding a book but I needed to find the right way to do it in a short amount time so I wouldn’t spend an hour on each copy. That was kind of a compromise between interests I had to make. The result is 190 pages of off-set, b&w print on recycled paper with an embossed cover, hand-bound by me with a leather string. Dated, numbered and limited to 500 copies. It’s self-published, ad free, non-profit and crafted all the way with mega love! The cover embossing was done by a friend in his artisanal typographic studio called Typow in Switzerland on a very old and grumpy Heidelberg machine. The contents were printed by an eco-printer in the middle of the French Alps and the leather string is made in France too. I really wanted to make it locally with people I know and who care and not just send over the file to China to get it for half price.



Are the photos all from this past season, or is it a collection of shots from a range to dates that you found striking?

- Most of the photos are from the last two or three years, but some of the landscapes may be a bit older. I didn’t really care how old shots were but was more interested in how timeless they are. I wanted to create something that will last, that you can look at in few years and still enjoy going through. I got so many insane shots. It was really tough to choose and narrow everything down to 190 pages.

Did you look to include more film work, or is it fairly balanced between film and digital images?

- As much as I love and use film, when selecting photos I don’t want this to interfere in the process. A nice photo is a nice photo, no matter how it has been shot. I was more concerned about the connection on each spread. Choosing photos that work together with their construction and framing or with what they show. For special features, though, like Darrell Mathes’ polaroids or Yves Suter’s portfolio, I didn’t want to include any digital images. So it really depends on the editorial piece. No rules; that was how I wanted to build this first volume.

the-dirty-dogs.com
mattgeorges.com