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What Would You Do Differently If You Could Start Photography Over
4k Plays10 months ago
Matt and Blake explore the hypothetical scenario of what they would do differently if they could take up photography again with everything they know now.
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Transcript
Introduction to Hosts and Podcast Theme
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome back to another Frame of Mind episode. My name is Matt Kloskowski from matk.com and I'm joined by my buddy once again. Well, not my buddy once again. Joined once again by... Sounds like we were not buddies. Blake Truce from 64academy.com. What's up, buddy?
00:00:26
Speaker
Good. Our last conversation didn't get heated enough for us to not be buddies. No, not at all. If you're new to the frame of mind, this is just a podcast where we try to talk about photography, photo editing topics to solidify your frame of mind, shift it, adjust it, challenge it, whatever that happens to be.
Starting Photography: Key Advice
00:00:47
Speaker
And our topic today is if we were starting photography all over again. Advice that we give ourselves if we were starting photography all over again. So I'll let you, I know we talked a little bit about this. Blake and I actually try not to talk too much so the conversation is a little bit more organic. So I'll let you kick it off, man.
00:01:09
Speaker
Cool. So the first thing for me, first and foremost, number one, it's going to sound silly to a lot of people here, but this was actually because of Matt. So Matt and I met on a photo walk and he was asking me how I was shooting the HDR images I was shooting. And I didn't know anything about my camera. So I was doing it all manual. And the worst part is that I was shooting it all on JPEG. So Matt even says, Hey, were you shooting in raw? I was like, no, I don't shoot in raw. I was shooting in JPEG. And he looked at me like, Oh,
00:01:40
Speaker
The only reason, and my only reasoning behind not shooting in RAW was because I was so used to editing JPEGs and not knowing what a RAW file was that every time I opened a RAW file, Camera RAW would open first. And I was like, why doesn't it just open in Photoshop? I don't want to play with this stupid Camera RAW thing. And I would always just say open and bring it into Photoshop. And I like had no idea.
00:02:04
Speaker
And so there was probably about four years of images that are all
Understanding RAW vs. JPEG
00:02:08
Speaker
JPEG. And I shot all JPEG with bad white balance. And yeah. And it's interesting because back in the early 2000s, RAW was difficult. Number one, digital photography was pretty new.
00:02:25
Speaker
So we didn't know, like we didn't totally understand it. People were used to computers by that point. So they were used to having programs that could edit a JPEG, open a JPEG, do something with a JPEG. And then you threw this format in, this raw format, that like you said, it put a roadblock in front of you of Camera Raw, which we were all afraid of. I know I was.
00:02:45
Speaker
And, uh, and then we also didn't understand what raw meant. Like there's a lot of misconceptions about raw people. People think, people think that your raw photo is not the same quality as your JPEG. Like it's not sharp or edit or it's sharper. I don't know, but people think it's got some mythical qualities. Other than it's got more information and leeway for you to edit. It's not a sharper photo. It's not, you know, um,
00:03:15
Speaker
I know. Yeah. They're just back then there, there was, there was a lot of, a lot of, uh, a lot of mystery around what a raw file was. So I could definitely see that one. It wasn't until I made the connection with myself to the dark room and I was like, hold on a second. A raw file is basically like a negative. Yeah.
00:03:31
Speaker
this camera roll thing, that's my darkroom. And if I were to take my negatives and just try to print them without going through all the stuff that we went through in the darkroom back in the day, then I would just have a contact sheet, essentially, right? Instead of really good images. So once I put that together, I was like, okay,
00:03:53
Speaker
Adobe Camera Roll is like my digital darkroom. I need to do this before I can do the fun stuff. Got it. And then I easily change. But it was just a mindset shift over something really silly that I let block me for four years. And I think a lot of changes are like that. I think people in general just
00:04:11
Speaker
We very rarely learn something new in anything. Sometimes it's just a different way that we look at something that shifts our entire world. I think that's an important one. I'd say the nice thing about shooting in RAW is because I don't want to discount that there are some needs to shoot in JPEG. I'd say the nice thing about shooting in RAW is you can never, ever, ever harm the original photo.
00:04:38
Speaker
Or you can with a JPEG you can overwrite it and do something harmful to it by accident And then I would say more information more leeway for editing than you would with a JPEG photo I don't think people should shoot raw plus JPEG because in one click You can have that folder full of JPEGs if you want I think it's more photo clutter for us if you don't need it and you know a lot of people
00:05:01
Speaker
If you had an art director sitting by that you had to immediately hand the photos off to, which is probably maybe one out of the people that are listening to this, sure, maybe raw plus JPEG would be needed, but I'd even argue that that's not much of a case. There are times where, so you don't want to shoot JPEG when I forget to clear my memory card before I go out shooting. I get out there and then I realize, oh crap,
00:05:30
Speaker
I've only got room for about 30 raw photos on my card right now. Oh, wow. Then I switch over to JPEG and I really make sure I try to nail the exposure. All right.
Photography Techniques and Simplicity
00:05:46
Speaker
My first one is going to be almost like Blake. It's going to sound super simple.
00:05:56
Speaker
But I've come to believe simplicity is a big key in where I am today. And I think everybody goes through this wave of complexity. We start something, we're not good at it, we add to the mix. We're still not as good at it, so we add something to the mix, whether it's gear, whether it's setting, whatever.
00:06:19
Speaker
And we're not good at what we want, so we continuously add things and add things as time goes on, thinking that's gonna be the answer to why we're not happy with our photography. Before you know it, we kind of have a fairly complex photo world. And then I think as you become more confident, you start pulling yourself back to simplicity. I think it's the trait of everybody that eventually becomes good at something.
00:06:44
Speaker
I wish somebody told me in the beginning that get your camera in front of something great, in great light, and the rest takes care of itself. If you do those two things, the photo, the composition, the light, the editing, all of those things become so much easier.
00:07:10
Speaker
But I think if we fail to realize that, and I think a lot of people do, I think a lot of people think, I'm not gonna say that editing can't help a photo and can't take a good photo and make it great, but editing very rarely will take a bad photo.
00:07:24
Speaker
OK, not of a great subject or not in great light or both and make it a great photo. And I think people have some misconceptions that we can take a bad photo and make it great later. I don't really think we can get your camera in front of something great in great light, hopefully. And the rest becomes very, very simple.
00:07:45
Speaker
I agree with that too. Um, although I lived in California when I started digital photography really seriously, and I had great things in front of me everywhere I went, but then I moved to Kansas city, Missouri and I've got like barns, barns or bar. So it's like, I agree with that, but at the same time, um,
00:08:13
Speaker
There's also this, I have almost the opposite here written down and also the same time I have the same things kind of written down on your idea of simplicity. A lot of times when we kind of talk about this, we don't really share this stuff with each other. We kind of make our own notes and then we come to this thing.
00:08:28
Speaker
So I have simplicity about my workflow, because I used to go from Photomatix to Adobe Camera Raw to Photoshop to Topaz to Nick to On One. And I thought that was like a badge of honor because I was moving to all these different places for post-production. When in reality, I didn't need to do all of that. I could do all of it in Photoshop if I just knew Photoshop. So I've really simplified that process. But when it comes to the shooting aspect, I almost feel like
00:08:56
Speaker
I wish I would have comp stomped less. And you know the term comp stomp where you see something on social media and you're like, because I would do this. I would go to the Golden Gate bridge and try to find the exact shot that that person.
00:09:09
Speaker
And like you're saying, I've done it. I've had it in front of my phone in front of me. Exactly. Good subject. Good light. The rest takes care of itself for sure. But what I've noticed recently, especially because I roll with two camera bodies now, one of them will have, well, and this is always now, I carry two tripods, two cameras. One always has a 70 to 200 or 100 to 400 on it. And the other one is my wide angle one.
00:09:32
Speaker
So that way when I'm on the wide angle one, I can move to the telephoto one and I start to look around. And I've actually had more fun and found that more of my images are coming from the 70 to 200 to 100 to 400, which is crazy for me to even do it. It's crazy for me to admit, Matt, I know. It's so far from our Zion trip. Go wide or go home, I remember. But I'm finding that
00:09:59
Speaker
being more deliberate about finding things that I enjoy in a scene rather than trying to comp stomp with good things in good light. And even if the light isn't good and I show up on location, that's when I find that I'm using my telephoto more because I'm getting into the nooks and crannies and the places that don't have the epic light that the wide does. But at the beginning, I guess, yeah, that would be a great thing.
00:10:21
Speaker
But I see your point for that. But then I also see the point to tell a beginner, hey, relax a little bit and just let yourself shoot.
Exploring Everyday Photography Opportunities
00:10:28
Speaker
Just slow down and let yourself shoot. Yeah. And I agree with you because what I don't want to do with that point that I made is discourage. Like, oh, I can't be out at the national park, so I can't shoot. And I guess that's not necessarily what I'm saying. I'm saying,
00:10:48
Speaker
They're, you know, if you just restricted me to just my neighborhood.
00:10:53
Speaker
I could still probably, I'd be restricted to wildlife, okay? If you restricted me to my neighborhood, I'm not gonna take an amazing landscape photo because there's just not an amazing landscape in the cookie cutter neighborhood that I live in. So the architecture is not amazing. The homes are not amazing. The cars are not amazing. So I'd be restricted to wildlife photography, which I could actually do pretty darn good if you restricted me just to the neighborhood that I lived in. Well, yeah, right behind me was a gator when I was at your house.
00:11:23
Speaker
Just kind of hanging out, chilling, staring at your house. Dude, I saw there was, I played golf yesterday. There was a huge gator right in the tee box in front of me, like seriously, 25 feet away.
00:11:35
Speaker
Like, it was right in front of me. And then there was one, we stopped and right after we teed off, we go down a hill and the drink cart lady shows up. So me and my brother stop and get a buy a beer from her. And there's a little pond there and there's a gator sitting there and she's like, oh, wow. She's like, look at that gator up by the tee box. I'm like, look at the gator right behind you. Mind you, it's going to be negative 12 on Sunday in Kansas City.
00:12:02
Speaker
Anyway, but yeah, I think my main thing to that is just understand you've got to put something really good in front of your camera. I think that's a good thing. Whatever that really good is for you and the area where you live in. And I always say this, let's say I was a car photographer,
00:12:21
Speaker
that I didn't live in like an area with exotic cars and I didn't have a studio to put cars in and all these things, I would probably lose my urge to do car photography if I didn't have really good subjects to start working.
00:12:37
Speaker
with it. And I think that's my point there is you've got to keep yourself engaged. And maybe you're practicing looking for great things around your house. But at the same time, you should maybe plan a trip somewhere to go maybe try to find something more interesting. But for sure, there's got to be something good in front of your camera. And what you consider good could be different from what I consider good. But there's got to be something we find enthralling in front of us. I think that's the main point. Absolutely. All right. What you got? Number two.
00:13:08
Speaker
I'd say this one is really important for me. Um, and it's about gear. It's a kind of a double fold thing. Um, number one with gear, I wish I would have spent more on things that I needed rather than things that I thought would do something for me that I needed. And what I mean by that is I used to buy like $150 lens instead of the Sony lens because I was like, well, it'll be good enough.
00:13:35
Speaker
Yeah. And it never was good enough. And what I've learned recently, especially with this as a business and when you're buying a lot of stuff in order to keep a business afloat is that my new motto is buy once, cry once. And that is I am going to buy whatever it is that is going to get that thing done and is the best of the best of that thing in order for it for me to
00:14:01
Speaker
fulfill that gap, you know, feel good and feel used to purchase. More importantly, though, I think I wish I would have spent more time acquiring skill rather than acquiring gear, because I think what I learned was that as I acquired skill, I learned what gear I actually needed versus what I told myself I needed, which that hurt the wallet because of all the stuff that I was buying, because I didn't have the skill that I needed in other places.
00:14:31
Speaker
That could work for software. It did work for software. You know, I used to buy every piece of software that came out up until like 2018. Every piece of software that came out for photography processing, I bought. And then I got to a point where I'm like, man, my workflow is getting insane.
00:14:45
Speaker
I just, I just simplified it all down to Photoshop. That's all I use, period. Now I use, you know, a little bit of Topaz here and there with the AI stuff, but you know, I wish I would have just acquired the skill that I needed because that would have informed me on the gear that I actually needed versus what I was telling myself I needed. If that makes sense. It does. And I think, I think a good way to help with that and it's, it's advice that I try to, I'm sure you get people ask you all the time. They send you a message, Hey, should I buy this lens? Should I buy this app? Should I buy this, whatever. And.
00:15:15
Speaker
Almost any place that you can buy gear from has a 30-day return policy. Almost every software app you can buy has a 30-day trial. The trials these days don't even watermark your photos generally. The trials these days just stop after 30 days. They're fully functional. What I try to tell people is don't buy it out of the need of, oh, it's on sale, so I'm going to buy it.
00:15:43
Speaker
only buy something that you have found you have a direct need for, which means if you're thinking about buying that lens or if you're thinking about buying that app, go ahead and buy it and make sure you're in a place and a time in your life where you can use it and determine over the next 30 days
00:16:01
Speaker
is this necessary for me and then return it. But all too often we just get caught up like we see something and we're like, yeah, you know, maybe I'll buy it. We can argue about whether it's right or wrong, but I mean, almost everybody listening to this has that. What do they call that?
00:16:19
Speaker
that shopping, there's a term where you go shopping and it makes you feel better. Buyers remorse? No, that's if you buy something that you're not good with. And this is a way to get rid of buyers more. But there's a, God, I can't remember. Anyway, there's a term where if you go shopping, you buy stuff and it makes you feel better. And it's a fact, it does. And sometimes buying it re-engages us with the hobby, which is okay. But I would just say,
00:16:48
Speaker
get something that you have determined a need for, not just a want. Okay. And then once you've determined that need for it, you know what the best thing is? You eliminate what you just talked about, Blake, which is buyer's remorse, because if you buy it and it sits there and you never use it and you're not even sure if you needed it in the first place, you've got buyer's remorse. But if you buy it after you've tested it, like, yes, this does what I want it to do. You'll never look back.
00:17:14
Speaker
I wish I would have had your advice after I bought the two drones that are sitting in my closet doing absolute nothing. What's your number two?
Gear and Learning in Photography
00:17:24
Speaker
Mine is... I know what yours is.
00:17:32
Speaker
and because we're gonna talk about yours, another one that you have. I would say, I would try to reduce the number of people that I asked advice from. Because I thought back in the beginning, just let me get advice from everybody. So right down to the camera that I bought.
00:17:54
Speaker
And then the first lenses that I bought, I wish I reduced the number of people that I took advice from because what it did is it sent me off in so many different directions. I still remember the conversation when I first got into photography and I was sitting there at lunch with somebody that was a portrait shooter. And he's like, oh, absolutely, the first thing you need to buy is a 51.8.
00:18:18
Speaker
And what's interesting is I never had any desire to do portraits in the beginning, so I really still don't today. But he was recommending a very portrait related lens. I was talking to a portrait photographer, even though I had no desire to do portrait photography, the first lens I bought was a 51.8. And I walked around thinking that magic was supposed to come from this lens when it doesn't.
00:18:43
Speaker
Yeah, once you read all the posts on the Internet, though, the nifty 50, man, that's where it's now. And it's it's probably one of the I think I think that could be one of the biggest disappointments in photography is somebody who buys a fifty one point eight and thinks their photography world is now going to change and be amazing. And they realize their photography world has not changed at all. But I do. I wish I wish I wish I I cut down on the number of people I sought advice from.
00:19:13
Speaker
and really found people that were, number one, decide. It can change, but go into it with an idea of what you want to shoot. You get the same questions I do. Hey, I'm thinking of getting a camera. Which one should I get? I've got to send you an email back asking you seven different questions, because I can't just tell you what camera to get. It's what do you want to do with this? I wish I cut down on the advice that I took and just took it from people that were more into what I wanted to do.
00:19:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. A lot of times people ask me to like, I'll get messages from friends and I'll say, we're looking for a camera. Can you help us out? I'm like, what's your budget? And they tell me, I'm like, just go to Best Buy and ask somebody for help. I'm sorry. Most of the time, you can't ask a professional, especially like you or I, like, what kind of camera should I get if your budget is $400? Sorry, I can't really help you there. And then I would also say you need to maybe consider
00:20:10
Speaker
In the beginning, I wish I had considered where I wanted to go for this and almost invested in it at the time because you and I both know we almost all buy something.
00:20:21
Speaker
that meets our needs then, and then we end up selling it or holding onto it and buying something new later that really meets where we've grown into. So it's kind of like a house. You're a young family starting out, buy the house that you're gonna grow into. If you think this photography thing is something you really are gonna invest into, buy the camera and the lenses that you can grow into. Because if you buy the cheap stuff, like you said,
00:20:44
Speaker
buy one's cry once. If you buy the cheap stuff, you're going to eventually, that's wasted money because you're going to buy the expensive stuff anyway. I know that sounds easy to say, like everybody's got unlimited money and I know we don't, but there needs to be, there needs to be at least have the self-awareness. Have the self-awareness to know, hey, I can't afford any more than this right now. And if you can afford more than it right now, then maybe you should consider it.
00:21:09
Speaker
But that's, I mean, in all honesty, the reason why I started a blog to start a business in photography was because I wanted a better camera. My wife, she told me, she said, go buy that new Canon that you want. And I was like, no. She's like, well, you're starting a blog. You need to have more professional gear. I said, I love the fact that you're giving me permission to buy a camera, but I'm not spending a dime on this hobby coming out of our budget until I can start making money off of it.
00:21:31
Speaker
Yeah, and that's that was my drive my passion my determination and look at it now it turned into a YouTube channel I'm sitting in my basement teaching from You know all that happened because I wrote your dog. I refused. Yeah, I refused to go into credit card debt to get a camera I said I'm gonna make this thing pay for it And you know that that but that that's been my my whole life has been like that so, you know when when people hear that Oh must be nice so you can do that. Well, hey
00:21:59
Speaker
Hard work is not nice. All right, most of us. It took a long time. Yeah, it took a long time. All right, what do you got?
00:22:06
Speaker
Uh, number three, I would say probably most important for me. Number three. Well, I kind of have one that's like really important, but this one is actually, we talked about one good. I said I was going to talk about it, but I've got one that is really good, but it's not really. All right. You, you could do that one and I'll do, I'll do the mind. No, I don't want you to replace one of yours. Um, I would focus more on the exposure triangle and the theory behind it rather than camera settings and.
00:22:36
Speaker
trying to get things dialed in you know what i used to do i used to look at uh a lot of magazines backing so just so people know matt and i met in 2010 at a photo walk and very shortly after that i started reading a lot of the kelby magazines and um i'd follow scott kelby and matt glaskowski and all those people
00:22:53
Speaker
And some people would leave their camera settings on their social images. And I had a notebook, it's over there, I still have it, that I would write all of your camera settings on, like if you posted a waterfall picture. And then I would go to a waterfall and I would change all my settings in manual mode to your settings.
00:23:08
Speaker
And then I would try and take that picture and it would come out like crap. And I'd be like, why did his come out great? Mine like crap. And it was all because I didn't understand the theory behind what's happening with aperture, ISO and shutter speed and how that trifecta, you know, if you're really trying to master manual mode, you have to understand the exposure triangle. But now I mainly shoot an aperture priority mode and I really just use my EV plus minus
00:23:32
Speaker
because I'm on landscape mode. It's different when you're in wildlife mode, but landscape mode, that's how I shoot. And when I teach at workshops, I walk up to someone's camera and I say, what are you doing here? Well, I'm trying to get this, but I just can't get my settings right. Well, what mode are you shooting in? Manual? Why? Because that's what I'm supposed to, right? No. Let's take a look at this. Why isn't this working? I'm not going to teach you the cheat. Let's see why this isn't working. Well, it's not working because it's overexposed. What can you do if it's overexposed? I don't know.
00:24:02
Speaker
Well, okay. There's three things that you can do and it all happens to be halves and doubles. If you just learn and halves and doubles, halves and doubles, you'll get this. If you half the light, double the light, boom, it's done just by moving these dials. So understanding the relationship between halfing my light that's coming into the sensor or what the center, the sensor is accepting, you know, and then knowing, okay, well I need to be in this aperture because I'm shooting a landscape. So it's gotta be F 13 or F 14 or F 16 or whatever.
00:24:30
Speaker
Maybe F11, whatever. So I need that aperture. So what else needs to change? Either the ISO and the shutter speed. Okay, well, what am I sacrificing or what am I gaining by moving these? If I use the shutter speed, then I'm gonna get blur. If I use the ISO, I could get grain. Those are the negatives, but what's the positive? So then, you know, once you understand the theory behind all that, it's very, it's extremely simple to change your settings on the fly.
00:24:56
Speaker
And it's not because I know the numbers, I could care less what the numbers are. I know the dials and I know what happens when I move that dial. So, you know, often when I do teach a workshop or I'm at a workshop, people are like, Blake, what are your camera settings? I'm like, it doesn't matter.
00:25:10
Speaker
Come on, man, just tell me what they are. And I'm like, okay, fine. And then I'll tell them, but I'm like, look, I need you to understand why I'm here because it happened two seconds later as the light's gonna change and I'm gonna move my ISO. And then you're like, Blake, are you still at those same camera settings? No, I'm not, I changed my ISO. You know what I mean? So it's because you can't just keep relying on a camera setting or a number to be the thing that is going to give you the results. You have to understand the theory behind the whole triangle and what happens there. And honestly, I didn't understand
00:25:39
Speaker
the exposure triangle much until I went to survival school and learned the fire triangle because the fire triangle, you know, what you need to make a fire and what you need to make to make exposure work. I was like, oh, wow. Now, now it connects and makes sense of this without this. OK. And then they all work cyclically.
00:25:58
Speaker
No, man, I agree because it's interesting because I battled with it. This was on the exposure triangle was on my list too, just for everybody listening. And I battled with it a little bit because I also really feel, go back to my first one, which is get your camera in front of something good. And you could put it on P mode.
00:26:23
Speaker
and make a good photo in most cases, right?
Balancing Creative and Technical Skills
00:26:27
Speaker
We could. What I would say is, what I would say to that, I think there's a balance. And I think that people have to find that balance between the creativity of putting your camera in front of something good and being able to recognize that and then being able to recognize the settings that you need to take that. And again, I think there's a balance. And what I mean by that is I'll be,
00:26:51
Speaker
This is when I would teach workshops in Costa Rica. And I would often have people say, OK, so we're photographing wildlife under a canopy of trees. So it's dark, even though it doesn't look dark, because your eyes have adjusted. There's very little light coming through. So I would say, OK, we're on manual mode, widest aperture. Number one, we want the best background behind the subject. So we want to use a wide aperture, a low f-stop number.
00:27:17
Speaker
and then you're going to put your shutter speed on whatever you need to freeze that subject. If it's sitting still, maybe it's one four hundredth of a second. If it's flying really fast, maybe it's one thirty two hundred. OK.
00:27:30
Speaker
And then I would say, go to auto ISO. But even if you didn't go to auto ISO, you would have to move the ISO to whatever number produced the proper exposure, right? Inevitably, I would have somebody say, Matt, my ISO is at 12,000. What do I do?
00:27:48
Speaker
And that's somebody that doesn't necessarily understand the exposure triangle. So now you're trying to troubleshoot something that's not possible to troubleshoot because you don't understand the interaction of those three numbers. There's nothing you can do, right? You're at the lowest aperture your lens will go to, can't go any lower, that won't let any, you can't get any more light in.
00:28:12
Speaker
You don't want a blurry photo, so you've got to shoot at the shutter speed. You've got to shoot at the ISO has to be what it has to be.
00:28:20
Speaker
And that's why I think it's important because you and I were both there at some point where it was like something didn't look good and we didn't know why. And that's the worst thing, right? You don't know why something doesn't look good. So back to what I said in the beginning, I favor the creative side of things because I think that's probably the most important, but you have to marry that with a little bit of technical. We're not saying know your camera inside out.
00:28:47
Speaker
because there's too many features, no one set up. But you got to know the technical and my analogy would be there are days I go out and play golf and man, I am hitting lasers off of the tee and I don't know why.
00:29:01
Speaker
While I like the feeling, it's a very uneasy feeling because at any point in time, that hook into the trees could come because I don't know why I'm doing something right. So I think marrying a little bit of the feel, the creative, the enjoyment of photography, marrying that with some technical skill. And you don't have to know a lot. Like Blake said, if you understand the exposure triangle, you understand how to capture any photo out there.
00:29:28
Speaker
Yep. It's easy haves and doubles, man. And I think that gives you more creative freedom because you're less focused on technical stuff and you can spend more time on vision. You can spend more time looking around because it used to be the camera was so difficult for me that I didn't understand it, that I would spend more time with the technical aspect on location than actually shooting. And now it's reversed. I barely even think about the camera. And all I think about is my vision and what I'm going to do with that scene. So what's your number three?
00:29:58
Speaker
All right, yeah, we should probably start bringing this in for a landing here.
Importance of Community in Photography
00:30:02
Speaker
Man, I got so many, I think, I think I would go with, I'm gonna put two of mine together. And that is community or a group of like-minded people.
00:30:16
Speaker
Cause I wrote like, you know, find a photo buddy, find a photo buddy to help you get to that next step. And I think that's something everybody as they're listening to this to try to work for this year. And it's hard. Maybe that photo buddy is somebody from a camera club. Maybe that photo buddy is somebody that you met in an online community and you just, you like the comments that they've said, they resonate with you, whatever.
00:30:41
Speaker
But it doesn't come easy. Most people aren't going to find that photo buddy right away. But I think it can really help you because you need somebody that you can trust to ask for opinions from. You shouldn't be blindly asking for opinions from anybody. You should never, ever post a photo to a group of people you don't know and say, give me a critique. And so you need somebody you can trust opinions from. And then I'll dovetail that into another thing, which is buy what your friends have.
00:31:13
Speaker
I bought a Canon camera in the beginning when all the people I shot with had Nikon. And so when I didn't understand something in the camera, I couldn't go to them. When my battery died on a trip and I didn't have another one, I couldn't go to them. When there was a piece of gear that fit whatever it was, we couldn't swap.
00:31:32
Speaker
If all your friends use a PC, buy a PC, don't buy a Mac. You're going to struggle because they're going to have things that they do and then you're going to be like, I don't see it here. Try to buy something close to what your friends have. And I think that sets you up to be able to learn a lot more along the way.
00:31:49
Speaker
I can attest to that 100% because I like to shoot with people when I go places, definitely for a lot of different reasons. But I would also say that that's good for a lot of things. I mean, we've become business buddies, not just photo buddies. And when I was doing my business by myself, I felt like I was in like this ocean and I was the only island and no boats ever came by.
00:32:15
Speaker
And it was a sad, lonely, scary feeling, knowing that you're just floating there, just hanging out, no one's coming by. But then when you started your own business, we have used that as a synergistic way of balancing ideas off of each other, talking to each other. And we even honestly say, no, that's not a good idea, buddy. Don't do that. Or how about you try this, right? And that has been so helpful for us as business people. But you can just flip that right off and just say the same thing for photography.
00:32:45
Speaker
You know, people come to me for critiques on F64 Elite, but if they had a trusted buddy or a trusted friend that has the same type of processing style or the same feelings about photography as them, they could have that same critique session with each other and be open and honest and help each other out. So that's awesome advice for sure. All right, you got one more? Well, I already did my third. That was the other one.
00:33:15
Speaker
we could wrap it up or I could have one more thing, but. I've got something that which I think you're gonna jump on to immediately, which I think is a good way to wrap it up. I'm actually kind of taking, I wish I knew, I was looking at videos, I was reading articles about this topic ahead of time, just because I wanted to spur some other ideas besides what I just had in my head.
Pursuing Personal Photography Projects
00:33:39
Speaker
And so I'm just gonna read it because it'll come better
00:33:43
Speaker
The gist of what this person said, and I can't even find where they said it, was, remember, nobody really cares. It sounds bad. Nobody really cares about your photo. So when you're out shooting with a group,
00:34:02
Speaker
Guess what? They really care about their photo. And you'll pull the camera over and you'll be like, look at what I got. And they'll be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. Right back to their camera. It's just like, oh yeah, cool. I'm happy for you. Let me get back to what I want to do. No one really cares. And I don't say that to be harsh. And I don't say that to discourage people. I say that to encourage you to be OK with
00:34:29
Speaker
with doing what you like, okay? And what I mean by that is I said, so take photos of the things you want. Don't censor your vision because other people don't find it interesting. And I would say a great one would be like insect photography. You're gonna have a hard time finding a large group of people that really like taking pictures of bugs. And you're gonna have a hard time finding your friends and family that are like, wow, that is an amazing grasshopper.
00:34:57
Speaker
But if you're into it, there's a certain feeling of enjoying what you're doing. So don't censor what you like, don't censor what you're doing because of other people. Do it, enjoy it, post it, maybe somebody likes it, maybe they don't, but you have to enjoy it first and foremost, and I think that's important.
00:35:17
Speaker
Absolutely. And I have so many personal projects that I do that fascinate me beyond belief. And I'll send him to Matt and he's like, cool. Your trading card, one with your brother, the Captain America one where you put your brother on captain. That was awesome. So, um, yeah, I've got a lot of different
00:35:38
Speaker
personal project. I've got some that I don't share with anybody, anybody. I've been doing these what I call color field paintings in Photoshop and I love color theory.
00:35:48
Speaker
And I'm one of those crazy people that likes Mark Rothko paintings. And if you ever have seen a Mark Rothko, it's basically just a swatch of color on top of a swatch of color. But I do those in Photoshop. I don't share them on social media. I don't share them with my wife. I don't print them. I make them and I enjoy them. And I think they're really cool. And I just have them. They're my little thing. It's like my little precious. The thing that I hold for myself that keeps the flame alive in the hobby while I'm still doing
00:36:17
Speaker
productive work as a business. So anybody who is doing this as a business who might feel like they're in the same grind of, here I go to shoot another wedding. Here I go to shoot another event. Here I go to shoot this. Have a personal project that maybe you don't even share with anybody that can love and your passion for photography, like a burning flame, right? That I would recommend on top of that. I like that idea of just doing what you do. And maybe you do it and you don't even share it and you just have it and it's your little thing.
00:36:48
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's important. You know, you you've got to really, really like it. And, you know, back in the day, I can talk about some of the competitive nature around where I used to work. But I felt like I had to do all this studio lighting to be considered to be able to hang with the people that were in the circles that I was in. And I dreaded it.
00:37:14
Speaker
I dreaded every time I hired a model to come into the studio and had to set up these lights, I dreaded doing it. And it wasn't my job. That's the worst part about it. I was a content creator, but I was trying to get good at this field that I thought I had to, even though I didn't want to. I think that's a good one to leave on. Don't let anybody do what you want to do.
00:37:41
Speaker
There's a certain degree to getting appreciation for what you do. And by all means, if you're somebody that needs that appreciation and it's OK to do that, make sure you're posting your work or getting feedback from somebody that's similar to that. But at the same time, I think we do need to enjoy it by ourselves. Agreed. All right, man. We'll go ahead and end it there. Blake, we can find you over at f64academy.com? Correct.
00:38:08
Speaker
Anything new you're working on these days I've got like seven things in the pipeline right now and I just need to let them out You know how my trials and tribulations? I am working on a big thing this year a really big course that I'm really excited about but that's gonna be a couple couple months down the road So what should our listeners look forward to? That course is gonna be huge. I've been working on this course for two years and it's a it's a
00:38:34
Speaker
It's an empowering course while at the same time, probably one of the best panels I've ever created. Um, it's going to be pretty big, I think. So I'm excited about it, but I got to get some other projects done for F 64 elite.com, which is my subscriber, my subscription website before I can really dial in on that. But that's my goal for probably March. I'm thinking cool.
00:38:57
Speaker
Sounds good. You can find me over at mattk.com. I got courses, presets, all that fun stuff. So appreciate you guys, everybody listening and thanks again, Blake. Thank you for the conversation. There's some good stuff in there. Hopefully I think our overarching theme, simplicity. Absolutely. So guys enjoy happy new year. I know we didn't say that this is probably the first podcast of the new year, but happy new year everybody. And we'll talk to you again soon.