In short
Podcast Summary: Conversations with Tyler - Seamus Murphy on Photographing Patterns Across Cultures
Episode Overview In this episode, Tyler Cowen speaks with Seamus Murphy, an Irish photographer and filmmaker known for his extensive work in conflict zones, including Afghanistan and Nigeria. The discussion touches on Murphy's experiences in various countries, his insights on culture and photography, and reflections on his life and career.
Key Themes
- Optimism for Afghanistan
- Experiences in Conflict Zones
- The Impact of Photography on Perceptions
- The Evolution of Irish Society
- Cultural Observations from India and Russia
Key Discussions
Optimism for Afghanistan
- People's Resilience: Murphy expresses faith in the Afghan people, highlighting their love for their country and the potential of the diaspora to make a positive impact from abroad.
- Unity and Challenges: Discusses ethnic unity and the possibility for progress in Afghanistan, emphasizing that problems often arise from outside influences rather than internal divisions.
Experiences in Conflict Zones
- Encounters with Boko Haram: Murphy recounts near-death experiences while photographing in Nigeria, illustrating the dangers faced by journalists in conflict areas.
- Safety in Afghanistan: He shares his feelings about safety and law and order in Afghanistan, contrasting his experiences with that of an American journalist, noting that his Irish background typically grants him a different level of safety.
The Role of Photography
- Shaping Perceptions: Murphy discusses how photography influences the global perception of Afghanistan, recognizing the tendency for media to focus on dramatic imagery while neglecting everyday life.
- Capturing Authentic Moments: He reflects on the challenges of photographing Afghans candidly, noting their awareness of cameras and the cultural sensitivities involved.
Insights on Irish Society
- Catholic Church Influence: Murphy describes the rapid decline of the Catholic Church's power in Ireland, reflecting on the historical context and connection to personal experiences.
- Celtic Tiger Era: He contrasts the pre-Celtic Tiger Ireland with contemporary society, suggesting a newfound maturity and reflection after past economic crises.
Reflections on Kolkata
- Cultural Vibrancy: Murphy shares his affinity for Kolkata and its cultural richness, describing its character and the dynamic social life.
- Challenges of Living There: While he enjoys his time in Kolkata, he acknowledges issues like pollution and noise that can affect daily life.
Similarities Between Cultures
- Visual Similarities: Murphy remarks on the visual parallels between Michigan and Russia, exploring how both cultures embody certain aesthetic qualities.
- Understanding Affection: The discussion touches upon the complexity of emotional expression in different societies, including a humorous take on cultural differences in smiling and friendliness.
Future Projects
- Upcoming Film: Murphy is developing a film about an Afghan family he has documented over the past three decades, focusing on their experiences and resilience amid conflict.
Conclusion Seamus Murphy's unique perspective as a photographer and filmmaker sheds light on the intricate tapestry of human experiences in conflict zones, offering hope and insight into the resilience of individuals and cultures. His artistic journey reflects both the challenges and beauty found in documenting the world through his lens.
Quotes
- "If they were left to their own devices, they would be fine, but unfortunately they never have that luxury." - On the Afghan people.
- "You have to love what you're doing; you have to have an interest." - On pursuing a career in photography and film.
Additional Resources
- [Full Transcript of the Episode](https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/seamus-murphy/)
- [Watch the Full Video](https://youtu.be/F7UoQBSKOHw)
Follow and Support
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This summary provides insights into the episode, highlighting significant themes and discussions while reflecting on the broader issues of culture, conflict, and photography.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:04Conversations with Tyler is produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, bridging the gap between academic ideas and real world problems. Learn more at mercatis .org. For a full transcript of every conversation, enhanced with helpful links, visit ConversationsWithT Tyler .com. Hello everyone and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler. Today I am talking with Shemus Murphy, who is an Irish photographer and filmmaker. He has numerous books including Photography of Afghanistan, Russia, America, and Ireland. He has a book of poetry from Afghanistan. He has worked with PJ Harvey, the British popular music star on two albums, including on Let England Shake.
0:52He does film as well. He's a hard person to summarize because there is in fact no one else bike him and he grew up in the Dublin area. Shamus, welcome. Thank you. Nobody's there. Just to start with Afghanistan, where you've spent a lot of time recently, correct? Yes. Is there an optimistic case for that country right now? And if so, what does it look like? I think the optimism that I would have for that country would be the people. And I think I've got a lot of faith in the people. We have this impression of Afghanistan as being very conservative, very extreme. It's not at all. They're a very, very easygoing people.
1:31And they've been in the middle of a lot of trouble, usually caused by people on the outside. There is a small country. There are strategically between many powers. And they've had a lot of problems in their time. I think the optimism I would be looking towards will be the diaspora, I suppose, the people that have left, the people that might be able to do something from outside. They're certainly keeping people alive by sending money back. So I would say also people's love. Their love of their country is something special. It's not a sort of city patriotism. It's really, really deep in their veins.
2:04And you know, it's one thing to have problems in your country and all the rest of it. but it actually have to leave your country. That's tough for anyone, but I think for Afghans it's particularly tough because they have such a lot for the country. So I would say, you know, the diaspora is probably the, because people in Afghanistan can't do much, you know, they have to go along with whatever the authorities are saying. They're pretty impotent. Is there enough ethnic unity there to build a nation state or you think the path of progress looks quite different altogether? I think they do get on with each other.
2:38I mean, there are tribal differences. like anywhere I think people want to get on with each other and I think it'll be some upstart politician someone who sees a way to make a profit for themselves or make a name for themselves, they'll start trouble. Vested interests in other countries will promote one leader over another. That's where they problemize. I don't think it's the Afghans themselves. They're like you and me. They're actually better at times than you and me. They really are harmonious people. Very poetic, very able to have a laugh. You know, I've seen people make jokes in the worst of circumstances.
3:12So I think the thing about Afghanistan is if they were left to their own devices, they would be fine, but unfortunately they never have that luxury. So in the 1960s and part of the 70s, it seemed Afghanistan was ready to grow, become a mature nation, and what went wrong after that point in your take? I don't know. I mean, you know, 79 was the Islamic Revolution. 79 was the invasion by the Soviets. There was things stirring in the region. I suppose extremists were maybe heating the coal from Saudi Arabia. I don't know. I'm not an historian. But it just seems, it seems too coincidental that these two things happened very close to each other.
3:53There was things going on and you're right. I mean, you look at photographs in the 50s or 60s, you know, that people dress like people in the West. You look at pictures now and it's like going back 100 years, 200 years. But you know, it's happened around the world, hasn't it? You know, religious extremism. It's not peculiar to Afghanistan. I think just Afghanistan's had a very bad taste of it because they do have, they are in a strategic position where they can be exploited. How urbanized is Afghanistan now? Kabul is a pretty big city or? Kabul is a very big city. I think when the Soviets invaded, it was like four or five hundred thousand people.
4:29We're now looking at 4 .5 million, something like that. The infrastructure doesn't keep up with it. When the NATO were in for 20 years, there was road building. There were projects that should have modernized the country, but there's also a lot of corruption, corruption set in fairly early on. And you could say that was the Afghans' fault, but I think actually, the people that were giving the money, The West should have been more vigilant. I think they knew what was going on. If they really wanted to solve the problem of corruption, they could have done more. But they must have known 2010, 2015, how things were going, everyone knew there was corruption everywhere.
5:09They continued to spend the money. Then when the time came, they said, well, we've spent all this money, nothing to show for it. We're getting out. But they're the ones who spent the money. So should there be some responsibility there? How enduring do you think Taliban rule will be? I don't know. I can't see anybody other than the Afghans going in and doing something. Unless we have another 9 -11. I mean the only reason in a way the Taliban were kicked out in 2001 was because of 9 -11. No one was caring. No one was looking at Afghanistan. They were very interested when the Soviets moved in. You know the Cold War continued in Afghanistan.
5:45There was vested interests. The Americans poured billions of dollars of arms into the country. and, you know, by indirect means, create the Taliban. But, you know, now it's the idea of Western force going in there and trying to source something, I can't see it happening, because it really is. Do you think the more optimistic scenario is the Taliban reforms from within or the Taliban is somehow overthrown? I think reform from within, and I think I was there last in December, And what I found was there's definitely, you know, the younger Taliban, and pretty much most of the Taliban do not want the Triconian rules that are being brought in, banning girls going to school.
6:28They want their sisters and their daughters to go to school. It's widespread, and it's not just in the cities. I came across this in the country as well. So I think there are definitely, it's the leadership in Kandahar that's, and you know, one or two people really. So I think that's maybe not gonna last forever and hopefully there will be some kind of internal recalibration and the Taliban You know opens up themselves to more outside influence and things normalize that would be that would be a good scenario And I was thinking that when I was there that actually is it's a very positive. It's very strong possibility eventually that'll happen Because I think all other country needs it the country needs it economically Do you have a sense of what the current birth rate is in Afghanistan?
7:13No. No. But families are still having at least two children. So the population is growing. We know life goes on. It's any place like Afghanistan where I've been, you know, you arrive having red reports and you get there and you think, oh my god, you know, life must be so affected by this. Well, of course it is. But you know, life goes on and it's quite extraordinary that they're not going to stop having children. You know, they love their children. But a lot of countries, the fertility rate has plummeted just because women have decided they don't want two or three kids, right? Even in Iran, it's quite low.
7:49And this has not yet come to a bonus band. I don't know if that, if that, that rationale is promoted in Afghanistan by the Taliban. I have to, how safe is it to go there now? So when you go, how safe do you feel? In some ways safer than ever before, but I'm a man and I'm a westerner and I don't have any particular history of shouting about the Taliban or fighting the Taliban. So for me, it's easy enough. Law and order is very strong. If people rob things, they might get their hands chopped off. That hasn't effect. So as an outsider, as a Westerner, it's safe. In as much as a place like that, it can be safe.
8:32There's always the possibility of kidnapping. And there are other elements that the Taliban, more extreme elements than the Taliban, you know, Afghan ISIS and those people will be very dangerous. But got a car, it's very safe. I think. Would I be less safe as an American? You have an Irish passport, right? Yeah. No, I don't think so. Like in Iran, on the one hand, they're saying death to America, but at the side of the out there saying my brother lives in Michigan, you know, eights America is sort of a saint and sinner for everyone. And what's the biggest practical hardship with being there for an outsider?
9:13Well, you know, boiling the water might be difficult or the electricity goes out or there's a risk of dengue or what's the actual biggest problem other than maybe then being kidnapped? Well, my biggest fear always is a car crash, you know, because I think they reckon that more foreign correspondents get killed in car crashes than in any config zone. I'm always terrified. And also, if you're hiring a driver, they're always trying to prove themselves that they're faster and they'll get you, they'll get you somewhere in the hurry. And I always tell them, please, please just stand down. And that would be my biggest fear.
9:45It's always my biggest fear, whether it's India or Afghanistan or, you know, any other place. Is there enough congestion in the capital that you're not going to die on the road there or it's still an issue? Yes, yes. I love traffic jams, you know. I love when, and we've come from the Shimali plain in the north, you know, racing down the highway three at a time overtaking. And then eventually you get to this outskirts of Kabul, Hairehana, and I breathe aside the cyber relief as we slow down and it takes an hour to get the rest of the way, which is not very far. I know it's terrifying. Yeah, it's very, very slow, very slow.
10:18Now I found when I tried to photograph rural Mexicans, they put on their most serious face, the entire body stiffens, and it looks quite unnatural. But to them, that's what a photograph is. And I'm fine with that. How is it in Afghanistan? Afghanistan is particularly difficult because they have some kind of in -build radar when they know there's somebody with a camera. They just know it. And as soon as they detected, they started shouting everyone, there's a guy with a camera. There's a guy with a camera. So it's very difficult to turn up summer and do something candid or even just to relax the atmosphere.
10:51It's a carnival thing. But I think what you have to do is you have to work around that. They love having their photograph taken. And so you kind of play with that and you try and catch them as naturally as possible. And a lot of the time you think pictures are planted and actually an extra fact you've been talking to the person and there's a moment and you get it. So that's good. But I mean, yeah, the biggest difficulty that I've got to send is that people loved me photograph. So, you know, that can be a little bit tedious. And no religious strictures that are a problem. Not anymore. No, no, no.
11:20That was back in 97. I was there in 96 when the time I took over the first time. And that was when they were stringing up television sets. and, you know, undoing videotape. I mean, they say that it's idolatry to, in any way, lionize the human face. That's why you go to a mosque, you never see any faces. You do come across it sometimes. Somebody will give you some kind of chapter in verse that in the Quran, it says this about photography and you can, well, when was the Quran written? When was photography invented? And if you think about the outside world, you have a sense of how photography has shaped how people perceive Afghanistan now.
11:56Some iconic image or what's the effect and how realistic is it? I think, you know, like anything really, whether it's news or whether it's photography, you know, you do things that in some ways will capture people's attention. You know, you're trying to communicate something. And so rather than having 10 pictures of something boring, the 11th picture with someone that someone doing something interesting will be the one that you like that you strive for. And so the most dramatic, you know, the most intense will be the images that make it onto the news or in the newspapers. That's just fact. But I think if you're interested in the subject and you start looking at the diversity of books out there and you know, the collections of photographs from Afghanistan, there's a lot there of human life, daily life, it's not all doom and gloom.
12:43But you know, I think it's also understanding the news business, you know, that it is this thing of headlines and it is news so people want to see something new, something novel. And there's a, you know, there's a superficiality to that for sure. The famous photo of the young woman with green eyes, that's from Afghanistan, right? Yeah, well, actually it's from Pakistan, it's from the border. I think that family had fled the Soviet invasion and they were in the border. I think it was in the tribal areas, probably for shower. And is that misleading in some way? misleading? No, I don't think so. I mean, the picture, you know, she's looking pretty, pretty terrified.
13:20But the thing, of course, you've got to remember that photography, that photograph was probably taken in, you know, the fraction of a second. And two minutes before that, she might be smiling in Jimenez -Laylor, she might have been crying. You know, so, I think the intent, the intent of the, you know, it's a chain of the process. I mean, the person takes the photograph, the photograph gets disseminated. How it's used, it was used, I think, on the cover of National Geographic. I presume they had a much wider, in fact, they did a much wider story on what was going on in Afghanistan. If you read the story, you'd be filled in on what was going on.
13:52It was a very striking moment of the kind of fear, I think, that you could imagine. I'd go like that. Whether she was afraid of the time, I don't know. Maybe she was frightened of the camera. Maybe she was frightened of this white guy taking a photograph. I don't know. know. But I think it also captures the beauty of that girl. And that's another thing about Afghanistan. And people are absolutely beautiful there. They're very striking. I think that's important to see that side of it. Now, in one of your books on Afghanistan called, I am the beggar of this world. You mentioned that push to and women are not supposed to show love in romance, even when they're getting married.
14:29Why is that? I didn't write that. That would have been Eliza. I think Eliza with a friend and a journalist. We did this project together. Why is that? I suppose modesty. I really couldn't tell you actually why. Tradition for some reason. Yeah. I have the same issue with Iran. So I've met many Iranians. They're quite impressive, very smart, highly successful, especially in America. And yet the country itself is virtually always not on a good track. And clearly there's been some negative outside intervention in Iran. But at this point, I can't really fully believe that's the main problem. There's something about Iranian society, which I do not at all understand, that holds back a certain kind of progress.
15:19Maybe there's some attachment to a certain impersonality in public life that they don't have, or disputes become too fraught, or the country is not sufficiently unified, even though the people are super nice. And what is it you think that internally might be the equivalent in Afghanistan. Because there's plenty of Afghanis in northern Virginia, they're super nice, they're attractive, they've done very well. But at the same time, it's hard for me to believe that Afghanistan's problems are mainly about foreign intervention. Well, I think in the case of Afghanistan, you know, they're traumatized.
15:54I think there's definitely a trauma. They've been at war for over 40 years. Even if you do meet people in Arlington, or DC, or wherever. You know, they're carrying that with them. They're dealing with family that are still there. This is going to have an effect on you. You know, this is not an easy thing to deal with. So maybe that has something to do with it. I mean, I think in Iran, and I suppose it's, it's, is it the Iranians or is it the theocracy? I don't know what's holding it back. You're right. I mean, but they're not that separate ultimately, right? Iran is a difficult country to rule.
16:27It always has been. There's so many different groups there. There are so by jones. Maybe they're afraid if they liberalize, it will collapse into some kind of chaos, or they don't want to be the next Lebanon or the next Syria. Do they have much choice? I don't know how much choice they have in the end of theocracy. But it has a fair amount of support. It may not be majority support, but it has more support in Iran than it would find in most countries of the world. Yeah. There's a lot of traditional people there. Also, again, you've got the trauma of the Iran or Iraq war, where a lot of people were killed, and they're dealing with loved ones who killed, killed in the war, and to betray that, betray them, that keeps people loyal.
17:10I think it's the same in the West, you know? I mean, in America, people will be loyal to whoever president you have, and will, you know, because they've lost people in wars, the veterans. It's very hard to break away from that. You have to tear up your history and say, no, no, this is wrong. I think it's loyalty, as always. What's the food like in Afghanistan? Is it good? Is it like food in Afghani restaurants in the West? Can I just get pumpkin and ask for kadoo when it comes? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it can't be. And if you can go to the most remote little village, and of course, they're always going to have fantastic bread.
17:49The meal that food is very much part of the social thing and the tea, the green tea, and the bread. And then depending on the season, they're going to have wonderful fruits. Food is good. Food is good. Very neat, based. Vegan would have a hard time, I think. There's a poem in your book. Of course, you didn't write it. But I'd like to know how you understand it. And I think it goes, quote, I lost you on Facebook yesterday. I'll find you on Google today. What does that mean to you? As someone who's been there a lot? Well, I just think it, you know, the times have moved on and it's no longer just women at weddings writing poetry.
18:27It's a reflection of the modern world. Why did Russia remind you so much of pre -Celtic Tiger Ireland? Friendliness, warmth, bit of a daily struggle, sharing things, being able to laugh at things. And that's changed in Ireland today, you think. You know, I've just come from Ireland and it's all still there. And in fact, you know, I think that what happened was when the Celtic Tiger happened and then there was that terrible crash. They reckon, you know, it is reckoned that the Irish learned a lesson. I hope they have because it did seem like, you know, things were, as the Irish say, they lost the run of themselves and it was all about stages and it was all about accumulating properties and all the rest of it and going into huge debt.
19:12And I think people have learned that lesson. and just come from there and there's a wonderful atmosphere. There's a very small minority, very small minority of people that are heading towards this far right anti -immigrant action, very, very noisy on social media. So it sounds like it's everywhere, it's not, I actually, it's covered it wasn't. But I think Ireland, I think they've learned the lesson from the counter -tiger. I think it was a pretty shallow place back then. You know, these are generalizations, obviously. Not everyone was was prone to that. If I were to make to you the counterintuitive claim that Northern Ireland feels like the real Ireland to me, does that make any sense to you whatsoever?
19:56To me it's the Ireland that is still pre -modern in many of its parts, and the Republic is not other than maybe the West Coast or parts of the Deep South. No, not really, I don't think that's true. I mean, it's doing less well economically. That's for sure. I mean Southern Ireland is booming. Southern Ireland has never industrialized. So in a way we're catching up where we were never industrialized, the north was. We suffered terrible recessions and unemployment in the 80s. I left Ireland in the 80s during that time. It was a terrible time. And what do we do? We educated ourselves. So we became possibly among the most educated populations on earth.
20:37in that time. You're the most, I believe. Number one. So the North hasn't done that, I think. Of course, people were going to college, but it wasn't a sort of, you know, it was a default almost for people in Ireland to go to college. There wasn't anywhere else to do, wasn't anywhere else to do, one to do this. And I think also there were good decisions made by the government to offer off -regulation and promote it. And that's why I think the South is booming. Now, you're old enough to have lived through the collapse of Catholic Church influence in Ireland. Did that shock you? It seems historically virtually unprecedented.
21:11Or was it somehow obvious that would be happening? And why was it so quick? I don't know. It was shocking. I mean, I wasn't living there when it was happening. I was following things somewhat. You know, I've said it in one of the books. You know, it was like growing up in Taliban Ireland when I grew up in the 60s and in Dublin. The church had such power and they abused that power in many ways. some terrible. So when it all started falling, you know, it's like the truth comes out, you know, when the truth comes out, it can be like a house of cards. So I suppose that's why it might have been sudden.
21:42But I guess if you're living there and you're really observing this, it was probably being chipped away out and people were just, you know, the new things, people knew things and it was permissible now to speak up about it and talk about it. I mean, I think it's the church that's fallen. I wouldn't say religion is gone necessarily been, the church has already suffered. Being a photographer and also filmmaker, do you think you see Irish history differently from that vantage point? And it's so how? You mean, all the people's history? Other history of Ireland, the last, you know, say since 1922. Oh, no, I don't think so.
22:20I don't think so. I think people, I think if you're interested in history or interested in history, you'll read around the subject and you'll draw parallels with. I find though that, you know, things I've done in Ireland, they do inform me when I go somewhere else. You know, I look at the history of other... But that's pretty true of anyone, you know. You look at you, you know. What's relatable? You know, something happens to you or you learn something about your history. And then something's happening in Iran. No, that's interesting. You know, there's a kind of a parallel there. You know, we compare things all the time to me.
22:53When you left, why did you leave? I left, well, one reason was the recession. I also left because at the time it was a boring place for a 20 year old, it was a boring place. I might, you know, if it was now, I wouldn't be leaving. I would have stayed. It was, you know, a white Catholic poor country on the edge of Europe. And quite apart from that, I always wanted to travel from an early age I wanted to travel. So a combination of all those things, you know, I was going to be moving, whatever happened. Even if things had been going well, I think I would have I would have wanted to taste what else is out there.
23:30And how was it that in the Ireland of that time you became a photographer? I didn't really become a photographer in Ireland. It wasn't until I went to America and I bought a camera and I had time. And also there was a darkroom near where I was living, a public darkroom. And I was able to use that. I learned how to develop my black and white film and print it. And that was a huge factor. to suddenly take a picture and then be able to control it afterwards and see it. Suddenly there was a continuation, there was consistency. Something that you thought about, something you saw, something you wanted to capture, you could then see the result.
24:09You learn from your mistakes and when you're printing you really see the mistakes. So it was really when I left Ireland that I learned photography. And what had been your job in Ireland? I was a student. So you never had like a proper career before being a photographer? No. And then you went to where in the United States. I went to New York and I went to San Francisco. What is it you wish Americans would understand about current Ireland that maybe they do not? What's our biggest misconception? Ooh, I don't know. It's too general a question. I mean, you know, because everyone, people coming to London, they're going to have misconceptions.
24:49I don't know, I don't know they get things that wrong. I mean, I don't think it's necessarily a quiz, you know, I think they, you know, they seem to love it They can't all be so just searching for their roots. I think people love it. The atmosphere is great And things are so easy now with Transportation, it's very expensive though. I have to say it's much more expensive than it was I think we regard the Irish as especially friendly. I'm not sure that's entirely wrong to be clear But we don't come away necessarily from England saying the same thing and the more depressive side of the Irish personality is less apparent to visiting Americans.
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25:27That would be my sense. Well, I think it's also anyone on a holiday, they take away, they're in a good mood and if you're a tourist you're probably spending money. So people are going to be, they're going to be friendly to you. It's like they're just common decency and also good service. Irish people going to England, for example, will come back and say, oh my God, the English is just so friendly. They're not like that. They're much friend in the we are. They're much more polite. And I think it's also what you know. Like you walk into a shop in Ireland and somebody will maybe tell you a joke or something, which is unusual for you but not usual for us.
26:04Not unusual for us. And then maybe that Irish person will go to England and go into a shop. And the person in the shop might be telling them there's a bit of a history or something. And because it's different, oh my God, that's so friendly. When you're in a holiday, you're looking to have a good time. and you're in a good mood. So I think that has a huge effect. And now you're living in Kolkata mainly? No, no, I'm living in London, some of the year in Kolkata. And why Kolkata? My wife is Indian, she grew up in Delhi, Bombay in Kolkata, but Kolkata was her favorite. And they were the years that were her most formative years.
26:38She's got lots of friends from Kolkata. I love the city. I mean, she was saying that if I didn't like the city, then we wouldn't be spending as much time in Kolkata. as we do, but I do love the city. It's got, you know, it's got in many ways everything I would look for in a city and, you know, it, Carbohl in the way was a bit like Carcota when times were better. And this is maybe a replacement for Carbohl for me. But, you know, Carcota is extraordinary and it's, it's got that history, it's got the buildings, the people are very, the bingolies are fascinating. It's got culture, fantastic food. The best sweets in India, right?
27:15Absolutely, absolutely. It's my daughter's favorite city in India. Really? Yeah. What does she like about it? There's a kind of noir feel to it all. Absolutely. And it's so compelling and so strong and just grabs you and you feel it on every street, every block. Yeah. And it's probably still the most intellectual Indian city with the best bookshops. Yeah. A certain kind of public intellectual life. Yes, and it's widespread. It's not just an elite. Everyone, we went to a book fair, huge book fair. You go there and it's like going to, I don't know what it's like going to, a cum bamella or something, it's extraordinary.
27:56And there's a huge tent right in the middle and it's for what they call little magazines. And little magazines are these very small publications run by one or two people and they'll publish poetry, they'll publish interesting stories. Sadly, I don't speak Bengali because I'd loved to be reading the stuff, but you know, and there are hundreds of these things and they they they they survive and and people buy them and so it's not just the elite, you know, it's it's it's extraordinary in that way. Is there any significant hardship associated with living there say a few months a year? For us, no, no.
28:31I mean, there's a lot of pollution or yes, yes. And you know, the biggest The husband for me is the noise, the noise. The honking horns, Jesus Christ. I mean, really, you want to rip those horns out of those cars. Because people don't use their horn for any particular reason, it seems. It's just like a heartbeat. What's the future of that city? It hasn't grown as much as many other parts of India. It feels run down, which may be as part of the charm, but it becomes a problem over time. It's deindustrializing. Yeah, I mean, and somebody was saying right or I know who lives there was saying that the property development is all a kind of a scam in a way what they're doing is you're talking noir I did a project on the the Art Deco houses homes in in Calcutta they're wonderful.
29:18They're usually people from East Bengal middle class people I suppose you know fleeing partition and the war in 71 and they came to Calcutta and they built their houses and they loved Art Deco, they loved the modernism of Art Deco and each house is different. They are now being torn down to make way for flats, apartments, five -story, three -story even. But the point is that it's flats, whereas these buildings would have housed a very extended family, Maybe 20 people living out. Now they knocked these down. And the reason is because the people living in Calcutta, if it's a family, there's probably half the family are in Dubai, other people are in New York or London or Delhi or Bombay.
30:02And there's one person left who two people left and the property developers are knocking the door saying, hey, this one will give you this much money. They probably want to stay, but the other people living outside India want to cash in. They don't want to go back to the city. It's not the future for them. So, in some ways you could say it is slightly a dying city, but there is stuff going on. You know, there's a very thriving art scene. You do see shops opening all the time. There's new restaurants. So I don't know how it all works. They're not very happy with Modi. You know, they're unusual in that.
30:35They're a very diverse city and I think they pride themselves in that, which isn't really the Modi message. So you're right. It's not part of the thrusting new India. And that is what his charm is for an outsider anyway. And for people living there, I know, where else do you want to live? I love London. And the thing about is that I moved to London in 1877. And I never thought of London as my home for many years because I was traveling a lot. It was a great base. But actually over the years, I've, I've, I've also London has improved. You know, London was, I mean, I've got photographs when I arrived in London.
31:09And it was a shabby place, you know, it was violent. many ways. More violent than it is now. It was a tough place. The edges have been surrounded out, and food has got a lot better. Transport seems to have got better. Everything is more expensive, and it's very difficult in that way. But it was a very shabby place when I came in 87, but it's really improved. And for me, it's really improved. So I love London. I could live in Dublin. I think I could live in Dublin. I'd be happy between London and Calcutta. That'll do. and then trouble which is your life right and then trouble yeah yeah I mean I want to see more of India that's the other thing you know being in in Calcutta it's it's a gateway to not just India but you know the Southeast Asia so I mean if I can combine that with work that would be the key what do you think is the future of Syria you've done work there right I hope yeah a lot has changed in the last year.
32:04Is there hope? Or can you go there now? I think you can. I went there when I really shouldn't have gone there in 2012. They really looked like it was all over for us sad. And then Russia came in and helped them. And that was, you know, went on for, you know, I think I did a small little multimedia piece and I wrote the script saying that 5 ,000 people have been killed, you know, in 2012. I mean, what's the figure? What was the figure at the end of that war. And a wonderful people. I mean, I remember being in Syria in 2007, and I think it was, I did a story from a magazine which was in Lebanon and Syria and we went from Beirut, you could drive just across into Damascus.
32:47And it was like going from one planet to another in many ways. People were so honest and friendly. I'm not saying the Lebanese are dishonest, but there was just a very different atmosphere. And they were so friendly and just a lovely, lovely, lovely place. And even in 2012, things were already tough, people were fantastic. So the future, I don't know. I really haven't been following it. The problem with me is that when I stop doing work in a place, something else is taking my attention and I'm not very good at keeping up with, if I was supposed to go to Syria in two days, I would read all I could and get myself informed.
33:26So I haven't really been very, very diligent in keeping up with Syria, I'm afraid. Is that the most danger you've been in or would you say Nigeria or somewhere else? Well Nigeria was very dangerous. Yeah. I mean I was in two instances within within hours of each other where I really thought I was going to be killed. Killed for what reason? For being a photographer. I mean I basically basically ran into Boko Ra. Literally. Literally. I was photographing through the windscreen. I thought I was just going into a into a money market and that was photographing the currency exchanges and the driver didn't tell me You know, this is all Bocahara.
33:59That's what they do. And so suddenly, they were trying to drag me out of the car. It was a horrible situation. I was with the same journalist of lies, a grizzled, we're very lucky to get out of that alive. And then, and how did you get out of it alive? We had a driver who was very, very sharp and very good. And he sort of tried to talk them down. It was a mob and they dragged him out and they beat him up. They were after my camera is what they were after. because they thought I had something that was on value. In the end, I gave them a card, which wasn't the card that I'd been shooting the stuff on.
34:33Then there was a muller who came and tried to calm everyone down. And he did. And then it all rose up again. The atmosphere got became crazy. And then there was some kind of secret like security policeman who had must have been shadowing us, must have been following us because he stepped in. It took him a long time to, you know, with showing credentials and all the rest of it. They were really out for blood. And then a few hours later I was photographing on a bridge and people I thought I was safe to photograph in this bridge. There were people living down below the bridge but what happened was people were climbing up the columns of the bridge and came running after me and I had to literally run that the car was driving and I had to run, open up the car and jump in and take off.
35:18Like in the movies. Like in the movies. Yeah. You can actually do that. You can chase a moving car and open the door and jump in. Well, I had to, I literally, first of all, was the window. The window was open. I threw my camera in the window and then I grabbed the door open. I, yeah, the guy was, you know, he was driving slowly enough that I could keep up with him, but fast enough that if things got, got troublesome, he could, he could lose the crowd behind me. If I were to say that Michigan is for me the American state, most like Russia. Visually, do you agree? Looks, looks like it. Yeah, yeah.
35:50Yeah, I could see that. I can see that. What else struck you as similarities, visually, between the US and Russia? People? People's behavior? There's a kind of a grandness to both places, even in the design of things. You look at things like, well, telephone boxes, we don't really have them anymore, pay phones. But the American pay phone, I don't think it changed in decades. Whereas pay phones in the rest of the world, they changed every few years, redesigned. So there's a kind of a staple design solid in, I guess there's industrial. There's industrial similarity between the two countries. Things are built to last.
36:31And what led you to do a book on the visual similarities between America and Russia? Well, I've been working on a project on America for a number of years. And I wanted to, first of all, I wanted to do a book that was going to be in time for the 50th anniversary. of on the road Jack Kerolat book. I thought if I did a book on American now that would be a good thing. By the time 2007 came around which is when the anniversary was I still wanted to go. There was more I wanted to do so I kept going and then 2008 I was commissioned to go to the Russian Far East and photograph the country and the life behind this huge economic boom, all the energy resources, but really about the people and what life is like.
37:17And that's where the idea struck me that this is not huge. Of course, it's very different, but there's many, many similarities. And I thought that was a very interesting conceit. We're told that we've got fatal enemies. We've got natural enemies. And yet people from both places could be an either country. They could be each other at times. And I thought that was an interesting idea. And I, you know, this idea, it was just an idea of that stage. And then I continued to work on things in America. I got involved in filmmaking. I met PJ Arviem. We had a few projects that kind of took me away from the project.
37:55And then Trump started coming and making noises about Putin. And there was this sort of bromance. And I thought, this is very interesting. This is this old idea I had of similarities. And I decided I'd go back to Russia and see if I could do some work there. So I went back in 2017 and 2019. I went back to the Urals because the Urals was the closest I could find to an equivalent in a way. So the Urals are an industrial area. I've done quite a lot of work in the Pittsburgh area, Pennsylvania. So I thought that was a fair comparison. But really, as a photographer, I'm photographing people all the time.
38:31It's people. It's what they're doing as their relationships with each other. It's the funny things they do. It's the funny things that I see. the beauty that I see, how people struggle. You know, that's what I'm after. And you know, it's very easy to come up with themes when you're looking at pictures you're shot. But if you were to go out with a theme in your head, it would be quite, quite restricting in some ways. I think the photographs wouldn't be as interesting for me anyway. So I like that test, spontaneity. So you come back and you look at the pictures and then you start putting together the themes, the themes present themselves.
39:06themes perhaps you hadn't even thought about. I mean, right down to the very last days of putting the book together, you know, this was a many, many years project. There were pictures that were always going to be in the edit, you know, always going to be in. There's no way they were going to come out and they came out because they had to make room for this other picture that I found. So it's a very fluid practice and, you know, it's a great practice. I love it. I love putting work together like that, you know, sequencing it, editing it. These two pictures give you a certain mood, certain feeling, certain meaning.
39:41You know, at one stage I had 136 pictures in the book. That was going to be it. I couldn't imagine taking anything out. And then over time I started really going into the work and I ended up with 88 pictures, you know. And by doing that, I was changing the meaning of the book. I was making it lighter in some ways. So it's a great process, I love it. Why don't Russians smile more? Where do you think they do? I think they... I don't think there is serious as... When I came back from that trip in 2008, it was for a magazine called Dispatchers and I rode a little piece and I said something like serious people make me laugh.
40:22Very serious people make me laugh a lot and Russians are the most serious people I've ever met. So they made me laugh a lot. And I think what it is is that they have this very dark sense of humor. Again, very like I, I, I, the Irish, there's a dark sense of humor. And I think that they'll crack a joke where they won't smile. And that's part of the joke. And it's also like, you know, you don't even know it's joke. And that's the humor. My wife grew up in Soviet Union, and she has the basic view that people who smile too much, your idiots. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, they say that she and all her friends, they have excellent senses of humor.
40:58Yes. Yeah. And they're great story tellers. Yeah. Yeah. It's true, you know, but they haven't been studies done that if you smile a lot, you actually, it makes you feel better. So maybe it's right. Maybe it's a good thing. Maybe it's a good thing to But yeah, there is this sort of moody, you know, almost like, you know, Jean -Paul Sorge, existential, you know, quizzing everything and, you know, wise smile, so I think, I don't know. Did you visit Magnetic Orsch in the Eurles? No, no. Do people in the Eurles seem happy to you? Or what's it? It's a complex question, but what's your sense of the actual living standard?
41:39I mean, you know, I saw the original core, you know, and there were people in the middle. You know, I don't think that people were happy with the regime. A lot of the people that I was hanging out with were not happy with the regime for sure. And that was before the Ukraine War. It's corruption. You know, things are things are tough. But you know, they have their, their dachers. They have, they eat quite well, I think. They read a lot. Again, huge generalizations of afraid. It's a huge country, but I think, I think people are as happy as anywhere else. You know what I saw. You know, people in London complain a lot.
42:08People in Perum complain a lot, but they are also very happy. What was your role in the PJ Harvey album, led England Shake? Well, that was an interesting one because I, I, I done a book kind of Afghanistan in 2008 and Poly had seen the exhibition in London and she bought the book and she got in touch and was interested in meeting me and talking about that and and at that stage she had, she'd been writing the book, sorry, she'd been writing the songs and she'd done a demo. So really she'd already done all the work. I think some of the some of my my work might have influenced her in some way But looking at pictures from Afghanistan, but because she wrote about the first world war She wrote about Iraq she wrote about Afghanistan and she wrote about England.
42:54That was a living in shake and so I came back from Afghanistan actually having shot some video for the first time and She said oh you you shoot video too. Would you like to make some music films for me? And I said, sure. So that was what I ended up doing. She gave me the demo. It wasn't an album at that stage. And I put together an idea which was, first of all, I was going to go to Iraq and Afghanistan to shoot these music films in those places, because these places were being referenced so much in the songs. And I thought, actually, stay in England. It's called Let England Shake, stay in England and find some kind of equivalent, visual equivalent of that legacy, that legacy of colonies and colonialism of the First World War and find it in the English people and find it in the cities in the countryside.
43:42So I ended up doing this road trip around England twice and I shot a lot of video and I put it together and I made 12 short films for that album. So it was making music films for that album. And those are on your website, right? They're on the website. Yeah. And the next, the next project, we thought that worked very well. And the next project we decided what we'd do is we would actually start that project at the same time. So I would be photographing and filming. And she would be taking notes, writing, poetry and songs. And we'd do some traveling together. And that ended up becoming Hope's the extermination project.
44:19That was the other name of the album. Yeah. Do you think you and she saw something about England back then that was ahead of its time? I think she did. I think she did. And what was that? Well, it was Brexit, wasn't it? I mean, in its simplest form, it was Brexit. God damn Europeans is one of the songs that starts out. You know, it's some person being quoted. I mean, or she's written the lyric, the lyric, God damn Europeans. So I guess it was tapping into some kind of patriotism nationalism. And the further album, Hope Six Demolition Project, that came out of trips to Kosovo and Washington. Am I understanding this correctly?
44:58Trips to Washington, Afghanistan. Yes, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Washington, DC. We'd sort of decided we'd like to travel together and see where things would take us. And the promissory to other was like, you know, if we did this once and it just didn't work, that's fine. We wouldn't do it. But we were invited to Kosovo to a very good film festival called The Dockoo Fest in prison. and they wanted us to do a Q &A based on my 12 short films for Leningrad Shake. So I'd been to Coswood during the war and she'd already started writing some stuff, actually based on some of my pictures. So we went and we thought, okay, we'll go on this and maybe we should start, this could be the start of the travels and the Balkans are a fast ending place to go to and Cosalosa is at peace but very, very interesting and very, very warm people and so we spent a few days in costable and we discovered that we could travel together and we could actually produce work and we were sort of up and running and then I was a year later I was in Afghanistan working on that poetry project the Afghan Women's Poetry project and book and film and it was quiet there was 2012 I finished my work there was December very good situation with a very nice place to live a good driver that I trusted and I just offered would she like to come and visit Afghanistan?
46:18I didn't know whether she would have known in the end she did and we did that. And that was pretty extraordinary because I think what she wrote about Afghanistan was so unique. You know, it was a very different take. I'd never read anything like what she was writing about Afghanistan. And how would you characterize that? An artist's eye. I mean, a true artist's vision, you know, small little things becoming a whole soul. and then in a wrong way, you know, she was capturing that. And I think the country was, you know, it was great to do that with Afghanistan because, you know, as you were saying about photography and what people's perceptions are of the country, I thought this would bring a slightly different take on the place for people that would listen.
47:00Do you have a PJ Harvey story that you're able to tell us? Well, finally enough. Yes. No, the thing that comes to mind is the weirdest stories when we were coming back from Afghanistan, Turkish Airlines. So we had our trip and we went to the Pantia Valley and we had a few little scrapes, but nothing, nothing, because there weren't any tell about them there at that time. I mean, there were, but they were in other places. We didn't go to those places. So it was fairly uneventful, but there was always the possibility of something happening. And so, you know, a job done and we were flying from Kabul to London.
47:36and literally we were just about to land. I mean literally the wheels are down and the engines were raw -ward in direction and we took off. And I just turned up on our sitzies and I hope we're not being kidnapped. This is very strange. And we flew around for about half an hour. Nobody said a word. Nobody came on the... I mean everyone was freaked out. People in the airplay were looking for some kind of guidance as to what was going on. Obviously, the people that were at the staff were kind of all seated. So that was very strange, very strange thought. I just thought, you know, what's going on here?
48:12She was very calm. And what was going on? Don't know. To the state, I don't know. Got off the plane. Was happy to be on Terra firma, and that was the end of it. Forgot about it. I just thought about it right now. Mm -hmm. Now, if you meet a young person, and that person wants to be, you know, some modified version of what you have done. So photography, possibly something with cinema, multimedia projects, working with music. Of course they should work hard, they should be smart. But what are the traits you would look for in them to judge whether or not that was possible for them to do? I think it would not be a technical thing.
48:49I mean, I think people can learn technical stuff very quickly and technology is so kind of accessible. I think it's themselves, I think it's their interests, I think it's their curiosity. I think it's a very tough field to get into. It's very competitive. It's changed so much since I started doing it. But that actually they could handle because they grow up with the technology and the way things are. So that wouldn't be a problem for them. But I think it's really to do it and to do it properly and to have a proper career and spend the time you'd need. You really have to be interested in what you're talking about.
49:20You have to have a curiosity, you have to have a real interest and a love of it. Whether it's the the environment, whatever the subject is, and you should always do work that you love. Of course, you'll have to do work that you don't love, to make a living and to get on and pay bills, but projects that you take on, that take time, take a lot of energy and many times you think it's going to be a failure and nothing will ever come of it. You have to love what you're doing, you have to have an interest. So I think that would be the biggest advice to follow the things that you love and find a way to make it work.
49:58Do you feel there was a point in your career when you didn't do that or you think you've just executed on that consistently? I definitely did it. It was a period toward beginning when I was working a lot for a Swedish newspaper and they were, was very good pay and they were lovely people. I was traveling around England for them and I don't resent doing it and I'm very happy I did it and economically it was very stabilizing for me but I spent quite a a lot of time doing that. And I needed to do that because I needed to pay the bills. I wasn't, I wasn't independently wealthy. So, but then when I did get the chance to do some traveling and do the work that I really wanted to do, it was, you know, it was another reality.
50:37It would be nice to have done that work earlier, but you know, that's the way it goes. And what do you see as having been your big breakthrough? So to speak. Biggest breakthrough was the first piece I had published in England, which was about young working -class kids in Dublin having ponies in their back gardens, you know, in urban areas, inner city areas, where they would normally have cats and dogs, their horses. And I came across this having come back from America. I saw this kid on horseback, bearback walking past me in this, in this urban estate. I thought that's really strange. But then again, I'd seen that.
51:13I'd grown up with this. I knew it. But having come from the outside, this was something that was very unusual for my eyes. So I followed that and I found out that there was a horse market every month that these kids were going to. And they would have races and they would buy and sell ponies and I went to their homes and I saw, you know, how they looked after the ponies. And I did that story and that story was the first story I published in England and that was the break. That was suddenly, that was when the Swedish newspaper saw that story and wanted me to go to Ireland with them to shoot it in color.
51:42And that was the breakthrough after that. I was off the races as they say. Two final questions. First, if our listeners want to consume more of you, where would you send them? I spelled my website, you know, www .shamesmurvy .com. I'm very proud of the book that I've just come out with, you know, Strangelove. It was a very, very long, a very long process, and I think it's very relevant to the world today, and I think it's probably my best work. And that's the visual comparison of America and Russia. American Russia. Which I very much quite liked to be clear. very much quite like and I gave a copy to my wife who will what did she what did she make of it she hasn't looked at it yet but she will have a child she smiles like an American this to me is quite striking you know of the Soviet women who come over whether or not you marry an American I think is such an amazing predictor of your smiling behavior 20 years later I'm not saying they're happier but they do smile much more right good last question What will you do next?
52:41Well, I'm in the process of developing a film about a family that I met in Kabul in 1994. First time I was there, I stayed with them in this frontland area in the old city, and there were four sons and a father, and I photographed them. Then two years later, the Taliban came, and I managed to get down to see them just to see how they were doing. And I arranged to meet them somewhere else because I met them in their home, We might have been dangerous for them. And I found them and two of them had been killed by the Taliban. And I did a photograph again of the family. And that, every time I went to Afghanistan, I would check in with them and see what was going on.
53:20And I would take some pictures. And that developed into a very long project. It's over 30 years now of photographs. And there's two left. The two sons, the two youngest sons are still living. One is living in Turkey and one is living in Germany. So none of the family are alive. Most of them were killed during the war in the war. One of the boys that I'd met in 1994 had already lost one leg. He's living in Turkey. He's got seven children and the other is living in Germany with five children. And I'm making a film about them and I'm developing that at the moment with the producer in Ireland. So that's one thing.
53:55Yeah. And then there's always other things I'm doing. I'm going back to Ireland. I've just come from Ireland. There's a couple of ideas that I was researching I'm trying to put them into practice. So yeah. Shemma Smurfy, thank you very much. Thank you very much.
54:11Thanks for listening to Conversations with Tyler. You can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. If you like this podcast, please consider giving us a rating and leaving a review. This helps other listeners find the show. On Twitter, I'm At Tyler Cowan, and the show is At Cowan Convuse. Until next time, please keep listening and learning.
From the publisher
Seamus Murphy is an Irish photographer and filmmaker who has spent decades documenting life in some of the world's most challenging places—from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan to Nigeria's Boko Haram territories. Having left recession-era Ireland in the 1980s to teach himself photography in American darkrooms, Murphy has become that rare artist who moves seamlessly between conflict zones and recording studios, creating books of Afghan women's poetry while directing music videos that anticipated Brexit.
Tyler and Seamus discuss the optimistic case for Afghanistan, his biggest fear when visiting any conflict zone, how photography has shaped perceptions of Afghanistan, why Russia reminded him of pre-Celtic Tiger Ireland, how the Catholic Church's influence collapsed so suddenly in Ireland, why he left Ireland in the 1980s, what shapes Americans impression of Ireland, living part-time in Kolkata and what the future holds for that “slightly dying” but culturally vibrant city, his near-death encounters with Boko Haram in Nigeria, the visual similarities between Michigan and Russia, working with PJ Harvey on Let England Shake and their travels to Kosovo and Afghanistan together, his upcoming film about an Afghan family he's documented for thirty years, and more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel.
Recorded August 21st, 2025.
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