Picking up their new book, your first question for photographers Scarlett Carlos Clarke and Nadia Lee Cohen might be: what the hell does Podunk mean? It was mine before interviewing them and, in preparation, I armed myself with a Googled etymological history. In modern American slang, it refers to a small, insignificant or isolated town. It comes from the indigenous American language Algonquian, in which it means where you sink in the mire. Equal parts ominous and eerie, the word underpins the mystery in this series of stills shot in Lancaster, California, a remote town in the Mojave Desert’s Antelope Valley. 

Carlos Clarke’s way into photography was against her original plans. Keen not to follow in the footsteps of her father, photographer Bob Carlos Clarke, she pursued hairdressing after a foundation course. But photography was magnetising, and her knack was natural. Her portrait of her father, shot when Scarlett was only fourteen, was acquired by the National Gallery, making her the institution’s youngest photographer on its books. Her photo book, The Smell of Calpol on a Warm Summer’s Night, preceded by an exhibition at Cobb Gallery in London, was published by Mörel in 2024 (and features none other than Miss Nadia Lee Cohen). 

Friends for almost a decade, they have always worked together. Carlos Clarke first shot Cohen in 2014. Then, Cohen shot Carlos Clarke and her son, Mosco, for her book Women (first published in 2020 by IDEA Books). Their work continues to explore the weirdness and surrealness of femininity, womanhood and motherhood, pushing the boundaries of what these can look like. ポダン (Podunk) is their latest project, comprising 128 stills. Carlos Clarke shot Cohen on Super 8 film, in a departure from her previously colourful work.

I sat down with them before they both flew to Tokyo for the book launch at Dover Street Market Ginza. Speaking from time zones eight hours apart – Carlos Clark in GMT and Nadia PDT, they were finishing each other’s sentences and cutting each other off, talking with the intimate rapport of siblings; high energy, high octane, and anchored in the joint pursuit of making great art. 

Below, Nadia Lee Cohen and Scarlett Carlos Clarke about Podunk, what ruins a picture for them, their worst jobs before becoming photographers, and much more.

Tell us about the title.

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: I actually had the name written down for ages. I had it in my notes and I thought it was cool, and then I said it to Nadia, and you were like, ‘No way, that sounds like...’

Nadia Lee Cohen: I said sounds like steampunk. And then she told me what it meant, and I was like, ‘Oh, actually, it’s perfect.’ But I can’t say it out loud.

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: I just thought it was really fitting for the work

Nadia Lee Cohen: As soon as you told me what it meant – and I obviously knew what we’d done – it couldn’t be anything else… there’s not a better word that describes it.

How did the project evolve?

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: We shot really spontaneously and, to be honest, I didn’t know if we were gonna even use it for anything. And then I started pulling stills from it, and I thought, ‘Okay, maybe this is a thing.’

Nadia Lee Cohen: The stills felt like a black and white art movie – one of those boring ones. There was something matriarchal about the whole thing – not a grown man in sight. It reminded me of that. 

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: You’re a sister slash mother, the younger kids could be your kids, or they could be your siblings. 

So, did you go into it seeking that sort of ambiguity?

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: Yeah, I think so. I’m really drawn to weird family dynamics, and maybe because I’m an only child, it’s something that I've always wanted: a big family.

Nadia Lee Cohen: So, she did it [had children] quick. And she’s trying to inflict that on me because I didn’t, and haven’t yet. Hopefully, I will one day, unless I’m barren. Please don’t let me be barren. Touch wood.

“I worked on a burger van. I used to work festivals. People would pay in cash and I would take a quid or two extra, put it in my wellies” – Nadia Lee Cohen

It looks like you were shooting in the middle of nowhere. What was it like? 

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: I remember you were quite pissed off at the end. There was this desert wind storm and everyone was – 

Nadia Lee Cohen: Freezing. Every time the sun went down, it was so cold, and that’s something that you don't realise when you’re in the baking sun during the day.

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: It turns very fast 

Nadia Lee Cohen: Anything cold makes me moody.

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: I think you do actually loosen up when you’re really tired.

Nadia Lee Cohen: Well, it’s like Kubrick’s theory with Shelley Duvall – get someone at their wits’ end… 

You mentioned it being like a black-and-white movie. Quite a lot of your past work is very colourful – how come you chose to shoot in black and white for this?

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: I did that completely instinctively; I didn’t even think about it. Because I was shooting it on Super 8, it just felt right. 

Nadia Lee Cohen: I feel like you were working really closely with Vincent [Gallo], who knows exactly what he wants and that experience really infiltrated into everything that you were making around that time. Everything went dark in a good way, and in a way that you really considered. I think that that’s the most I’ve ever seen you really think about a project before and after.

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: Sometimes shooting stills can feel a bit rigid. With film, there’s something less precious – 

Nadia Lee Cohen: There’s so much more to extract from. I like that too. It’s why I like that Paris, Texas, Wim Wenders’ book. You couldn’t get that same feeling with stills. Automatically, when you tell someone it’s a photo, they pose. I think that’s the difference.

You’ve obviously worked together a lot and both shot and modelled for each other. How does your friendship come into your work with each other?

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: We met over ten years ago now. I asked you to be in something. And then I was in one of your projects.

Nadia Lee Cohen: She’s brutally honest. Scarlett is not shocked or offended by anything, which is a real rarity and something that I love in a friend, because you know what you’re getting. If something’s bad, you can just say it, rather than having to be like, ‘Is that gonna offend that person?’ In terms of how we met, you put me in a pregnant stomach [in The Smell of Calpol on a Warm Summer’s Night]. You’re always trying to make me into a mother.

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: I keep doing that. 

Nadia Lee Cohen: It’s interesting.

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: Yeah, it’s gradually stripping back the layers with someone… we’re getting to Nadia… 

Nadia Lee Cohen: That’s why I don’t ever speak. Because it ruins it.

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: But I think that’s a good thing, though.

Nadia Lee Cohen: So do I. When you’re working with someone you trust, you’re not asking, is it shit? to yourself, you’re asking it to somebody whose opinion you value and that makes a big difference.

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: It’s also hard if you’re in it. There’s probably work in the book and pictures of you that I think are, you know – 

Nadia Lee Cohen: Yeah, your favourites are not mine

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: All the faffing that goes on around shoots ruins the vibe. Like this job I did recently where there were eighty people on set. Everyone has an opinion, everything is watered down and, basically, you wanna get to the point where you are one-on-one with who you’re shooting. 

Nadia Lee Cohen: Yeah, the less people, the better. The last shoot I did in LA was without any permits, sort of how I used to shoot when I first came here – running around with a light on a stick. 

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: You don’t have to have those stressful shoot days where there’s no time to do a shot. It doesn’t need to be like that.

Nadia Lee Cohen: Whenever I’m doing something for a big corporation, there’s a lot of Hollywood talking and nothing actually happening. I think that’s why recently I’ve reverted back to the sense that if I want to make something, I will just make it the same way I did when I was in school. 

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: I think that’s why I want to go back to just working with friends. Because then, everyone’s pushing for the same thing: to make good work.

Do you guys do non-work stuff together?

Nadia Lee Cohen: I actually realised I work with all my friends, I don’t think that I’d describe it as work. When we went on holiday to Greece, we were just messing about on the balcony, taking pictures, and what was it you were doing? You were putting yoghurt on your tits and it was just – 

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: Attention seeking… that’s why it’s fun. I mean, maybe everything with us is work. Even when we were walking down the street in Hydra, you were stopping to take photos of a woman who had a tattoo on her neck saying ‘I AM That, I AM’. It’s things like that – noticing the details. I see everything as playing. I see what we do as an excuse not to get a proper job, really. 

Nadia Lee Cohen: I’m really thankful that I like what I do. Because I’ve worked before in jobs I didn’t like. 

What was the best and what was the worst?

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: For me, bar work was kind of the worst.

Nadia Lee Cohen: Did you work in a bar?

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: Yeah, I worked in pubs pouring Jaeger bombs.

Nadia Lee Cohen: I worked on a burger van. I used to work festivals. People would pay in cash and I would take a quid or two extra, put it in my wellies. At the end of the day I’d walk home, sounding like a knight; ka-ching ka-ching ka-ching, because of the stolen cash in my boots.

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: I worked in a hair salon. I did all the training, and then I was assisting someone who worked on a lot of editorial shoots. And it made me think, ‘Okay maybe I should be doing photography.’

Nadia Lee Cohen: I've also worked in a hairdresser’s, but they never let me hold a pair of scissors. I was just sweeping, washing hair and making tea. You were in a really different kind of hairdresser’s to me. In mine, I’m not sure anyone would know what an editorial was.

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: That’s more inspiring. 

Nadia Lee Cohen: It was. Remember when people used to bring in a photo they’d cut out of Heat magazine of what haircut they wanted. 

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: I can see how that’s fed into your work. I always tried really hard to avoid doing photography because it’s what my dad did. I tried really hard to not do it. I was like, ‘I just want to get a proper job and be paid.’ So that’s what I did. I did a foundation and then I went straight to do [hairdressing]. And then obviously I was around other artists and I was like, ‘Oh, shit.’

Nadia Lee Cohen: [Photography] is what you’re supposed to do. You’re not supposed to cut hair, I don’t think. Not with that haircut you gave Mark.

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: I have done really bad haircuts on people.

What would ruin a photo for you instantly?

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: I think posing… someone who’s doing a pose they think looks great.

Nadia Lee Cohen: I hate anything high-def. I don’t understand why we need that. No one is supposed to see themselves or anyone else in one of those seven-times-zoom hotel mirrors. 

Do you think that’s shaped by social media? 

Nadia Lee Cohen: I do. We used to want people to look beautiful.

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: Now everyone responds more to an iPhone picture, don’t they? 

Nadia Lee Cohen: Yeah, for sure. Well, there’s a reality to [that], but there’s also something about higher definition that feels cheap and invasive. 

How do you think social media has shaped how each of you photographs, or is photographed? 

Nadia Lee Cohen: I take more portrait pictures so they fit on a phone screen.

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: You’re actively doing portrait?

Nadia Lee Cohen: Unconsciously doing more than I would if the phone didn’t exist, yes. I used to be informed by does this look like a film? And that would always be landscape. And now, even subconsciously, I’m thinking, is it filling [the phone]. You basically want to fill the space of whatever you’re in. 

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: I’m doing the opposite. 

Nadia Lee Cohen: You're rebelling.

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: I’m self-sabotaging, yeah. I’m not giving the people what they want.

Nadia Lee Cohen: I think it’s good that you’re not doing it. Because also, it looks good in a book.

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: I think now more than ever, it’s gonna be so important going back to that process of developing, printing, making books.

Nadia Lee Cohen: Making something physical puts a line under a project for me.

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: I now look at my old work, and I’m like, ‘Well, that could be AI.’ It couldn't, but it kind of could.

Nadia Lee Cohen: Right, I think it’s that basic childlike thing, you make something and you show it to someone and say, ‘Look, here’s this physical thing I’ve made.’

“I’m self-sabotaging, yeah. I’m not giving the people what they want” – Scarlett Carlos Clarke

What’s an influence that you guys would never usually admit to?

Nadia Lee Cohen: I can’t admit it.

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: My new thing is that I don’t want references.

No mood boards?

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: Ugh, the word mood board.

What’s something that’s overreferenced right now? 

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: I wouldn’t know what’s overreferenced. Nadia’s work?

Nadia Lee Cohen: Ahahaha. The word ‘iconic’ – that needs to go on Nicky Haslam's Tea towels as common. I don’t know why everything has to be a ‘moment’ at the moment. Hardly anything is actually iconic.

So, your influences…? 

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: It changes, doesn’t it?

Nadia Lee Cohen: It does change. People think that you’re gonna be able to do good work all the time and –

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: – I think you have to do shit work as well

Nadia Lee Cohen: I don’t know that you do. I just think you need to take a fucking break.

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: I love this, coming from you… It’s not like it was for my dad’s generation, where you could make mistakes and experiment and work wouldn’t necessarily be discovered. Everything exists online forever now. 

And why launch it in Japan? 

Nadia Lee Cohen: There’s something ominous about Scarlett’s work that I think must have been passed down to her from her father, which I’m really drawn to. The footage from this film felt like one of those incredibly dull but beautiful black-and-white art movies that you’re supposed to show off that you’ve watched. Particularly Onibaba, because of the grass, the landscape, the characters. It’s a Japanese movie about women fighting to survive while men are away at war. There was a parallel matriarchal theme – so that’s the crux of it. Plus, who doesn’t want an excuse to go to Japan.

Scarlett Carlos Clarke: This was just an excuse for you to go to Japan, wasn’t it.

What are you excited about in Japan, apart from the launch? 

Nadia Lee Cohen: There’s a restaurant where an old Japanese couple make dinner in their living room. They have a shrine to Burt Bacharach and one of his albums plays from a CD player on repeat. 

Podunk by Nadia Lee Cohen and Scarlett Carlos Clarke is published by IDEA Books. RSVP here for the Tokyo launch on 27 March 2026.