“‘Hard ears won’t hear, own way will feel,’ is something that my mom said to me and my siblings hundreds of times when we were growing up,” says photographer Ronan McKenzie. “It’s something that most children of Caribbean parents are likely to have heard, and usually comes before ‘I’m washing my hands of you’ and is basically when your parents have had enough of you not listening.”
While traditionally the saying means that those who don’t listen will have to learn the hard way, Ronan took it to mean that sometimes it’s okay not to listen, that “it’s okay do your own thing, to be confident and just go for it… even if you’re going for it on your own.” With that in mind, tired of the media’s obsession with youth and instead intent on celebrating tradition, family, and culture, Ronan produced Hard Ears.
Calling on friends, friends of friends, insta-friends, and past collaborator friends, she put together a cultural mish-mash of contributions from the UK, the US, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Vietnam, Korea, and Portugal. Inclusive not exclusive, the publication is full of real people and real lives — beautiful, relatable words and pictures produced just for you.

What’s Hard Ears all about then?
Hard Ears is a publication — I keep saying magazine but it is way more like a coffee table book — that is strong, hearty, and, I hope, relatable. An un-elitist, un-exploitative, uncensored place for honest images and words that reflect the norm and the now. Born out of my frustration with publications being too much of a popularity contest, or flicking through the pages and feeling like an outsider, I wanted to create a strong theme-led publication that is beautiful and full of incredible content. It’s so unusual to find people as established as Nick Knight or Piczo in the pages next to insanely talented but new artists like Abondance Matanda and Hyunjung Hexa Koo. I think it’s so important to appreciate talent for what it is and not how old you are or how many people have heard of you.
When did you first dream it up?
I was sitting in my garden back in April with my friend Donnika and we were talking about my work and how it was all going. We ended up talking about publications and how I found it frustrating that some big names might like my work but would never commission me to shoot a big story because of my age, experience, or (lack of, haha) Instagram followers or popularity. I was bored of a lot of magazines being guided by advertising and being unable to shoot things exactly the way I wanted to or with who I wanted, and Donnika suggested I start my own publication and I thought yeah… why not?

Do you have a favorite feature or page?
Oh, I have so many favorites! Some of my favorite pieces are Ruth Ossai’s series of her family and friends in her Nigerian village Nssuka, Rosie Marks’s “AMERICA” series, Elizabeth Lee and Neesha Tulsi Champaneria’s “CHAMPA” series, Jackson Bowley’s beauty portraits and Abondance Matanda, Will Stowe, and James Massiah’s poetry.
You celebrate real people. Do you think there comes a point when big brands jumping on the street-cast trend becomes a problem?
No, I think the more diversity in the type of people that we see in big brands and campaigns the better. The problem comes when big brands use street-cast people because they can pay them less than signed models, that’s an issue!

Hard Ears is very international. Was that always the intention or did you start local?
I knew from the beginning that I wanted it to represent more than just London. One reason is that I’m exposed to so much imagery online every single day from photographers, stylists, artists, writers etc. in other countries that I learn from and that inspires me. It was important to make that a part of it. And just because the contributors that live in London are from so many different places and as a lot of people shot their friends or family it was just inevitable that some wouldn’t be in the UK. Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Vietnam, Korea, Portugal, and America are just some of the places where images were taken!
The theme for the first issue is “old.” What does “old” mean to you and why did you select that theme?
I decided on the theme because I’m just so bored of youth culture being shoved at me from every angle! I’m frustrated with the consumerist, throwaway attitude that comes with the feeling that everything needs to be the newest, the youngest, and nothing that isn’t brand new is valued. My dad used to always say,”If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and I wanted to run with a theme that was both broad and appreciated the notion of “old” and whatever that can be interpreted as. Old to me is: family, tradition, culture, history, ideas, thoughts, people, memories, and so much more!

This is your first publication. Was it harder or easier than you expected?
I funded Hard Ears myself, which was very important to me so that I was able to set the tone exactly how I wanted it to be. I didn’t want any of the content to be influenced by money, and I wanted to be able to be truly uncensored in the way that images or written pieces could be totally honest without worrying about offending anyone who is funding the magazine. In terms of putting the actual magazine together, I didn’t know what to expect! From the very beginning when I started contacting people that I wanted to contribute, or even before that when I discussed it with friends I had a super positive response and it all went quite smoothly from there. My friend Ruby jumped on board when I was getting all the content back in, and did all the editing and design of Hard Ears with me, which was great as we’ve been friends for like eight or nine years now, so she knew exactly what I wanted the outcome to be, and balanced me perfectly — even when I wanted all the text to be in justified text format.
While you don’t rule out ads entirely, you approach them differently to most…
Advertising in most magazines is so obtrusive! It makes up 30-60% a lot of of magazines and while, yes, I understand that a big part of magazines and fashion imagery is selling, I don’t see why it can’t be part of an idea or a story. If the advertiser wants to have their ad in a specific magazine it’s because they feel the audience might relate to it, so why can’t it become a story? I have three advertorials in Hard Ears and they’re all part of stories that would stand alone even if they weren’t ads, and that’s how I want to approach advertising in the future. For example; with MARIEYAT, we filmed dancers dancing in her pieces, exploring movement and connection, and with Base Range I shot my mom working out in her front garden, the images sit alongside a piece she wrote about growing up in Barbados and how important food was.

Why did you select Dickies to collaborate with on merch?
Dickies is a brand that has been going for for almost 100 years, which prides itself on creating durable workwear that lasts. One of the brand’s taglines reads, “Hard Working, Hard Wearing,” which aligns itself perfectly with Hard Ears. The point of Hard Ears is that is means something, it’s something that will last, so it made sense to collaborate with Dickies and I was so happy that they went for it!
Did you always intend on donating some of the profits to Crisis?
Always. I’ve been volunteering at Crisis for the past two Christmases, and will be again next week. But as I’m a freelance photographer with an erratic schedule living in London, it’s so hard to give any more time or money to causes that are important, so through creating my own publication, I’m creating a stream of income that will allow me to donate to charity and I also hope that it makes people think more about it. 20% of all profits will be donated to charity, 10% will consistently be Crisis and the other will be based on the theme. So as the theme for the first issue is “old,” the other 10% will be donated to Alzheimer’s Society.
Which other independent magazines do you particularly respect?
The Mushpit is wicked! I also love Office Magazine, True Photo Journal, and Unemployed.

Credits
Text Francesca Dunn
Images courtesy Hard Ears