The MOOD Podcast
In The MOOD Podcast, Matt Jacob, renowned cultural portrait photographer, dives deep into the world of photography and the visual arts, with guests from all around the creative industry, across all parts of the globe, sharing inspiring stories and experiences that will leave you wanting more. With years of experience and a passion for storytelling, Matt has become a master of capturing lesser-told human stories through his photography, and teams up with other special artists from around the world to showcase insights, experiences and opinions within the diverse and sometimes controversial photography world.
You can watch these podcasts on his Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@mattyj_ay.
You can also follow Matt's work on his Instagram @mattyj_ay and his website: https://mattjacobphotography.com.
The MOOD Podcast
The Biggest Lie in Photography Education: Joe Edelman, EO85
Is photography education today more about selling than actually teaching?
Are we losing the art of problem-solving in the pursuit of easy answers?
Joe Edelman, an award-winning photographer, educator, and mentor, has spent over six decades shaping the industry. From his early days as a newspaper photojournalist to pioneering creative fashion and portrait photography, Joe’s passion lies in helping photographers master not just the technical, but the artistic and emotional depths of photography.
What we discussed:
- The biggest lie in photography education today
- Why photographers should focus on the why before the how
- How social media has fueled a “banger mentality” that kills creativity
- The real difference between amateur and professional photographers
- Why AI and technology won’t replace great photographers—but bad ones
- The truth about photography rules (and why most should be ignored)
- How to develop a photography career in today’s saturated market
- Why “Don’t be afraid to suck” is the best advice for any photographer
- The role of mentorship and why great photographers don’t always make great teachers
- What Joe would do if he were starting his career today
Find Joe Edelman's work on his channels:
Website: www.joeedelman.com
Instagram: @joeedelman
You Tube: @theJoeEdelman
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Welcome to the Mood Podcast, uncovering the art of conversation through the lens of photography and creativity, one frame at a time. I'm your host, Matt Jacob, and thank you for joining me in today's conversation. My guest today is Joe Edelman, an award-winning photographer, educator and mentor whose work has spanned over six decades, From his early days as a newspaper photojournalist to becoming a leading figure in creative fashion and portrait photography. Joe has dedicated his career to not only making powerful images, but to helping others master the craft as well. Joe's mission is clear to help photographers understand the hows and whys of making consistently great images, not just technically, but also artistically and emotionally. So in this conversation, we explore what makes an image truly compelling, how photographers can break free from cliches, and why an understanding of human psychology is just as important as knowing your camera. We also dive deep into the evolving landscape of photography, how AI and technology are shifting the role of photographers, and where the storytelling has lost its power in a world saturated with content. Joe's insights are really thought-provoking, actually, but what I loved most about Joe was his brutal honesty and wealth of experience across so many genres, technological shifts and societal trends. So if you want to challenge the way you think about photography. Please stay tuned. And here he is, Joe Edelman.
Matt Jacob:Joe Edelman, welcome to the Moo Podcast. Matt, thanks for having me. How are you? I'm really good. It's so great to have you here. This actually happened quite fast, so I really appreciate you just being really flexible and adaptable to coming on the show. I've been following you a lot longer than it's taken to actually arrange this conversation, and so it's a real privilege to have you on. And, yeah, we're going to dive deep into a lot of hows and whys and a lot of kind of information behind you as a person, as a photographer, and how you kind of got to where you are. And in that mindset, I want to start with a simple question, but maybe a larger and deeper one, and with regards to photography specifically, what do you think the biggest lie in photography education is today?
Joe Edelman:Oh, wow, gosh, matt, that's a great question, but I have to forewarn you, I don't have a lot of filters. I'm a last year baby boomer that identifies as Gen X, so be forewarned, okay. Uh, I think the big, the big lie in photography education today is that the if I had to drill it down to one broad statement too much of it is education that is masking a sales agenda that is being provided to an audience that is instinctively lazy. So that's a science thing. I'm not trying to insult anybody with the word lazy, but humans, we are instinctively lazy, so that's a science thing. I'm not trying to insult anybody with the word lazy, but humans, we are instinctively lazy, we want it easier, we want it faster.
Joe Edelman:That is, I think, the big lie. People are looking for the quick answer and there's too much education that is a do this, you're good to go. And the problem with that concept in photography it's not nothing's binary. The only binary answers in photography are physics right, we can't debate the physics when we talk about creativity. There's no binary, so there's no simple answer. Every question and every answer has got many, many, many variables that could impact the outcome. So I also find that part of that lazy. Oftentimes the information that people are seeking and the questions that are asked of educators elicit the wrong answers because they're kind of lazy questions. So I think the big lie is just that we have this glut of free education, which is incredible. The resources we have are amazing, but I don't think that the education and the people wanting to be educated are necessarily using it as effectively as they could society in a world of abundance where we can literally get anything we want, especially in the Western world.
Matt Jacob:In a developed country, we can have whatever we want, basically right. We can order food, we can order an Uber, we can just turn on Netflix. We don't actually have to leave our sofa, we can play video games to our heart's content. We're used to that world. Now, is that the problem of the society generally that we're living in, or is that an issue with the educators themselves and the fact that it's more homogenized than ever? Or I'm guessing there's probably a crossover a lot there.
Joe Edelman:Yes, so that's the easy answer. So I definitely think it's a societal thing, and I don't mean it in gee, like I'm an old fart and things were better back when. No, I think that these amazing tools and resources, we have also kind of conflict with our desire to just take the shortest path, just have the right answer. People want the right answer. There's not a lot of right answers, right, we get the right answers as photographers. You're a photographer, you go to these incredible locations and you, you know, are photographing these incredible portraits of people.
Joe Edelman:Well, that's not just as easy as pick up a camera and go click right. Your work, you know, evolves around building relationships on the spot. You've just met someone, right, you may be able to pick up a camera and just snap from time to time, but the majority of your work, you've got to create a relationship and create it quickly and oh, by the way, deal with all that photography stuff lighting and exposure and everything else. So there really are no shortcuts in photography. What we have, though, which is the double-edged sword. We have all this incredible technology that has made photography much more accessible, which is wonderful, but I think sometimes what it also does is it kind of creates a false sense of ability, does, is it kind of creates a false sense of ability? This incredible technology that we have allows people to pick up a camera for the very first time, even a phone for the very first time, and take a picture that is going to be much higher quality than anything I did at age 11 in 1971, right With a much simpler camera, working with film, where you press the button and waited seven days to find out how poorly you did Right, um, so I think people tend to get a little bit of a false sense of ability and the cameras allow you to do really pretty well, especially if you're instinctively creative. But you reach a point where you still need to put a foundation below that and then you know.
Joe Edelman:When it comes to the educators the only thing I'll say about that, because I don't really want to snipe at anybody, but we have a glut of educators and full disclosure I should say this up front I'm married to a cognitive psychologist.
Joe Edelman:I always joke that thank goodness she's not a clinical psychologist, or I'd be in a straitjacket by now for sure. That thank goodness she's not a clinical psychologist, or I'd be in a straight jacket by now for sure, but she has taught me a lot about teaching and just about how people learn, and I think one of the challenges that we have is that being a great photographer doesn't necessarily make one a great educator. Those are two very different skill sets, and while I appreciate that you said some very kind things about my photography and people tend to like my work I could name you hundreds of photographers who I drool over. I don't find myself in that stratosphere and I think in the last 10 or 15 years I've come to learn that I may be a bit of a better educator actually than I am a photographer, and I'm proud of that. I'm happy with that because I still get to do my photography, have fun.
Matt Jacob:So you should do and arguably, you make more of a difference that way than you and it it. I don't want to talk really like this because it belittles your, your incredible talent as an artist. But to have both of those, both of those skills is is something that, um, but to have both of those skills is something that, again, just doesn't come to you like that. You've worked years and years to hone those skills and hone those crafts. So let's talk about how you have evolved, certainly recently, with what we've just talked about, because we talked a little bit off air about what you might be known for if someone goes to your YouTube channel. Mainly because, probably because education tutorials on YouTube are probably I haven't actually looked at the analytics, but I'd imagine they're more popular. People go onto YouTube and Google how to do something right.
Matt Jacob:So your tutorial videos probably got more views than other types of videos. Correct me if I'm wrong, but also you did more of that previously than what you do now. So you've got this evergreen aggregate views over the years, right? So my point is if you go to a YouTube channel, those are the videos that come up to someone who hasn't seen your channel before. So how has your approach changed, based on what we just talked about in terms of lies in photography, education systems, the saturation of the educators and the world of abundance that we live in? How have you navigated through that now in terms of evolution as an educator?
Joe Edelman:So YouTube for me was a mistake. Literally and I don't mean as in, I regret it it means I never intended to build a YouTube channel. So if we go back to like, I don't mean as in, I regret it it means I never intended to build a YouTube channel. So if we go back to like, I don't know, 2008, 2009, probably 2008, I had taught a couple workshops that I was invited to teach at and kind of did it reluctantly. I didn't really think that there would be much interest in what I would teach or how I would teach. I had taught some community education classes when I was back in my 20s and that was all basic photography stuff. So I did these workshops, got a great response and then started thinking, well, gee, maybe I could do more talks for PPA affiliates around the country and camera clubs and things like that. But the problem is, of course, I'm located kind of between New York and Philadelphia and outside of the tri-state area 2008, 2009,. Not that many people knew who I was. So I thought, well, I'll make a couple of YouTube videos and then I can send them to PPA affiliates and to camera clubs and say, hey, I do these presentations if you're ever interested and they kind of took off, which was encouraging and really kind of a lot of fun. At first I even got a boost from YouTube. Youtube invited me to be a part of a program they used to do called NextUp, and I spent a week at the YouTube space in New York on their dime and went through five days of workshops and tutorials, working with YouTube employees and Google employees, and it was absolutely awesome. And so came back from that very energized and said, okay, let's try this. So came back from that very energized and said, okay, let's let's try this, let's see where it goes, and within about a year and a half managed to get up to about 150,000 subscribers and was churning out tutorials every week, which, as you know, doing weekly things for YouTube. It's a lot of work, regardless of what kind of product you're putting out, and I did that for probably the best part of two years and while I was having fun with it and anybody that's going to tell you that if you go to a trade show or something and people are stopping you because they know you from YouTube, it's fun for the ego, sure.
Joe Edelman:But I literally was in Las Vegas at WPPI and I had a gentleman come up to me and you would have thought this guy like just walked into Taylor Swift or something. He was all excited and it's very flattering. But as he's talking to me, he's telling me about how my channel was his favorite channel because it was really entertaining and it was his favorite weekly TV show and I had made it a habit when I started the channel and even when I met people, I always engaged. When people would give me a compliment, I would always ask them what's your favorite thing about it? Why do you like what I do? What do you want to see me do more of? Because there's no better way to be able to learn about how people are receiving your material, no better way to be able to learn about how people are receiving your material. And I came to find out that this guy really was the kind of photographer that owned a lot of equipment, bought every new piece of gear that came out, hardly ever took pictures, struggled improving his work, but did little to actually improve his work, and I realized he was really dead serious. I was like his favorite weekly TV show and that just hit me the wrong way because I was killing myself to make sure that my videos were packed with information.
Joe Edelman:When I did start picking up momentum, I spent a lot of time looking at YouTube videos with the idea of there's already people doing this. So what can I bring to the table that's better or different? How can I actually provide value? I'm a big believer in the business of photography. I don't care what niche you may be in, if you're not providing value. Don't expect people to care about what you're doing, period. Whether you want them to pay you money or whether you want them to watch your videos. If you're not providing value, you're not really helping.
Joe Edelman:So the thing that I found is that there was a lot of fluff, not a lot of meat, and one of the things that was really missing, which was kind of like it, was when I was back in school high school even taking a photography class where you're told you should do this, you should do that, you should do this, you should do that, and there was very little explanation of why. There was do it this way, but not a lot of the thought process. So at best, you were just going to kind of become a zombie where you're following this set of guidelines, but you never really understood why. So that became kind of my thing the hows and the whys. I wanted people to really be able to understand why they should do something and then what are the most efficient ways to do it, with a real focus on kind of problem solving. And that's how it got started.
Joe Edelman:Fast forward a bunch of years after that, I realized, like the problem with what even I was doing as much as I felt like I was packing my videos, there was no pedagogy to it, there was no curriculum, there was no kind of thread that actually took people from point A to point B, kind of thread that actually took people from point A to point B. So I remembered my why, and my why was not to be a YouTuber. So I stopped doing the tutorials. I was doing a weekly live stream, which I actually enjoyed, and for a while I convinced myself that the live stream was useful because it really was an opportunity for people to turn up live, ask questions and for me to talk them through the solutions and really try to give people a real-time version of this idea of problem solving and dealing with housing lives. And it was kind of hit or miss. Some weeks it was great. People will come in with really great questions, other weeks not so much, and in general I basically built a small audience of people that just enjoyed listening to me every week, but they really weren't going out and putting it to use. So I thought, well, all right, at that point I can put my time to better use. At that point I can put my time to better use. And I guess one last thing I should add in my entire career I get bored easy. I'm very fortunate. I kind of feel like I cheated the system. I've never had to do the job.
Joe Edelman:I started as a newspaper photographer right out of high school. I did portraits and weddings. I did commercial advertising work. I did food photography on large format film for about three years. That was back in the 1980s, which is another great reason to forget the 80s doing large format. I did fashion work. I made my money doing modeling portfolios and acting headshots for a bunch of years and then I stumbled into the fashion portraiture as a byproduct of the fashion stuff. And then Olympus came calling and I became a brand ambassador for them. And now I'm even doing a lot of youth sports and getting back to my roots with some photojournalism and still doing fashion portraiture. And I tell people very sincerely I don't know what I'm going to do when I grow up. I can guarantee you that we'll have a camera involved.
Matt Jacob:I love it. Why, why? What was the why for you when it came to came to having a camera? If you look back on why you started, why you enjoy photography and all of the different types of photography you've done, why?
Joe Edelman:Um, true, true story. The initial, the very first camera purchase was, um, uh, a way to get back at my parents. Um, they had an eight millimeter movie camera that I was fascinated by, but I was never allowed to tell, I wasn't even allowed to hold it. And I was fascinated by, but I was never allowed to tell, I wasn't even allowed to hold it. And I was very fortunate. I was an only child, so I was probably a little bit spoiled. But I had a deal when I was, you know, nine, 10, 11 years old with my parents, like for birthdays and Christmas, that I, instead of getting a bunch of toys and random things, I could get like one big gift. And so it was. I guess would have been my 10th Christmas.
Joe Edelman:The Sears and Roebuck catalog showed up at the house and I flipped it open and I got to where the cameras were and they had a camera. It was a German camera. I had a Max Practica Nova 1B and they were selling it for $75. My limit was $100. So I ran to my mother it's like this is what I want, and she didn't even hesitate, absolutely not. I think she was smart enough to realize pretty early on that it's not just a camera. There's a lot more and so it was going to be a lot more expensive. So I thought, all right, dad will back me on this one. So I went to dad and dad was like no. And we went round around for a couple of months because I was really bummed that they didn't keep their end of the deal and said no. And finally my father said look, you've been saving. Because you want to buy a mini bike, you've got $100 in the bank. If you want the camera that bad, buy it yourself. And so the very next day this was back in the days when your savings account was a passbook that you took to the bank Very next day I asked my mom for the passbook and I went to the bank, I took the money out and I went to a camera store in my town and bought the camera and my first roll of film was a roll of a 36 exposure roll plus X and um.
Joe Edelman:I will never forget and I pains me that I it's one of the few sets of negatives that I don't have. I lost it over the years, but I took a photograph of my father that day after he came home from work. My father worked in a factory. He had come home from work and he was sitting on a lawn chair in the yard at sunset. And so my father at the time he was probably in his forties but he had plenty of wrinkles and stubble and didn't like to smile. So it was just this tight portrait that I made of him with this really like heavy cross lighting, and it was awesome Like I can remember the picture in such incredible detail. Um, I don't, that's the thing. I lost the negative, I lost the print, but I could describe that picture, literally every little piece of it, and I was hooked, I mean literally. When I got that roll of film back standing in the camera store I was like, oh my God, this is amazing, and I honestly think that that was the moment done. And then I had well, I guess you know you asked the why. I guess the why that solidified everything. People don't believe it because I do so much public speaking, but I was a really shy kid. I would cross the street so I didn't have to say hello to somebody.
Joe Edelman:I started taking the camera to school. I was 12 years old, got to seventh grade and just to be cool, because I had this camera, I walked into math class one day and I didn't realize that my math teacher was the advisor of the yearbook. And he walked up to my desk and he slammed a roll of plus X or tri X on my desk and, in words that teachers could not say today, says to me you bring that damn camera to my classroom every day and I've never seen you use it. Go, shoot this roll of film for the yearbook, bring it back to me and I'll process it Like free film. Cool. So I did. He processed it and then he gave me two more rolls of film with a three by five card. It was my first assignment for the yearbook and it was to photograph some club after school.
Joe Edelman:But the problem was it was all ninth graders. I was in grade. I was terrified, I didn't think I could do it and, you know, got to after school, got to the room, there's all these kids in the room, the doors closed but they're all clowning around and goofing off because they were waiting for the photographer from the yearbook. Finally a kid walked out the door and saw me and turns around and yells the yearbook photographer's here and everybody stopped. Everybody looked at me and turns around and yells the yearbook photographer's here and everybody stopped, everybody looked at me and these people that have never talked to me, never even as much as said hello to me, are like what do you want us to do? Where should we do it? All these questions, and suddenly I was important to them and I realized the camera gave me access to people, which is something I'm sure you can appreciate with your portraits, and that the camera was a way of being able to approach people. And then I kind of evolved into photojournalism. I had my first pictures published when I was 14.
Joe Edelman:By 16, I was freelancing for newspapers and that, and by 16, I was photographing President Ford, jimmy Carter, I photographed Sylvester Stallone while I was shooting Rocky II, and so there was this access to things and the idea that I was photographing news events and seeing it and that I would come home and my parents were watching it on the news. But I was there and that was kind of it. I mean that that was from that point on photography. For a way, for me it's it's people, um, still to this day. I mean, even the only time I didn't do people was the three years I did food, and it's because it paid really well and it just kind of fell into my lap, but I got bored with it. That's why I only lasted for three years.
Joe Edelman:Everything else has involved people to some degree. Um, and still does the sports happen? Because I have a 10-year-old grandson who's a diehard baseball player and I started shooting his baseball games and had no intention of it being a business model, but finally had the coach of another team basically tell me here's your business model, this is what we're going to pay you. We just need you to show up for two hours, and it was money that would have been stupid to refuse. So that's kind of how it's really all worked. For me, it's all been just that pursuit of trying new things. I love new challenges, always love new challenges and, um, if there's people involved and I can learn new things, I'm in.
Matt Jacob:What a fantastic story. I love the clarity behind your why and how. It made you almost feel a bit more, a bit more of belonging within your peer groups, and I totally empathize with that. It's definitely a tool for that connection. But what I want to drill down a little bit more on the photo you know, know that first photo of your dad, maybe your wife, is. It would be better to to answer this question. But what? Why do you think? Why do you think? Because I know exactly how you feel. You know, when you, when you you get a photo, you see a photo, you go, everything's come together, some of it luck, some of it intentional, and you just have this feeling, but it's it's. It's very difficult to quantify or even qualify. Why do you think we as photographers many photographers around get that buzz from seeing a photo? Is it something to do with creation? Is it something to do with meaning? Why do we feel like that?
Joe Edelman:I think it can be all of the above. I know very specifically what it was for me and and it wound up shaping kind of how I prioritized my creative process through my entire career. It was that lighting that the image was shot close to sunset, so it was very low light as the sun was going down cross lighting because it was black and white. That also kind of solidified my early love for black and white, even though I'm one of those people I can't get enough color. My early idol with color was Peter Turner, who at the time in the 70s and 80s, was doing things with Kodachrome that were just completely unnatural and incredible. But yeah, there's just something about, you know, a strong black and white image. But it was lighting because when I saw the image, keeping in mind I'm shooting film, I was there, I took the picture, I was proud of myself because I used the light meter properly and, you know, got a good exposure, but it looks so different than what my experience was. So, of course, as I'm looking at it, I'm like I loved it. But why does this look so different? And it's the lighting, um, and then, of course, you know, shoot the next roll of film, um, taking pictures outside like midday and getting those pictures back and the lights just kind of boring and bland. So that was really it was from the very beginning where I realized, like light is incredible. But then it was this quest of learning as much about it as I can and learning how you know to use it as much as possible, which is something I know from your work. I know that you can completely appreciate, because some of the way that you're using lighting in your cultural portraits it's brilliant, absolutely brilliant. But I think it's one of the most overlooked things, even in terms of style.
Joe Edelman:Today, because of the resources we have online, because of social media, I find so many photographers get hung up in trends and it's not necessarily the nicest thing to say, but I call that being a zombie photographer right. It's just kind of mindlessly following along with what everybody else is doing. And I've always kind of had this mentality of you know what if everybody's over there, I don't want to work that hard, I don't want to do what somebody else is doing, because it's kind of like a Xerox. You know, I'm from that generation. You know Xerox is never as good as the original. So even if I wasn't going to be the best, which I didn't expect I'd be the best. I wanted to be me and do something different. So I was.
Joe Edelman:It was almost to the point of being obstinate about it. It's like, hey, if everybody, if everybody's into that, I'm not doing that. I simply refuse. I'm going to go do this, but it was absolutely from the beginning of lighting. Lighting is kind of my, it's my fun space, just to see, you know, what I can create and what I can make and how I can surprise myself with it, cause I'm a big believer of the day that I figure out lighting completely, I'm done. It'll become boring at that point. So I'm always pushing to find things with lighting that will surprise, because if it surprises me, you know I've got 54 years since I took that first picture, so if it surprises me, it's going to surprise other people, and that's kind of how I look at it.
Matt Jacob:Yeah, I think light is. We seem to have lost the essence of light and the importance of it because of, you know, maybe it's boring for people, but I guarantee the reason is it's difficult, it takes a long time, as goes back to what we're saying before, it's not a quick fix, you know, to learn to really see light and I, I, you know, I don't want to throw cliches out like that but to really understand and and and and have lighting be this natural thing that you can understand without even thinking about it. It takes time, it's difficult, it takes time, it takes practice. It's not something really you can. You can, of course, watch lighting tutorials on youtube, but until you actually do it and see it and understand the effects of so many different lighting, then and I think lighting transcends all trends right?
Matt Jacob:So if you have any photo, any type of style, but it has good light, you you're already winning, you're already being great if you've if've sorted out the light, screw the rest of the rules and the technical aspects, but if you've got light, you don't have any dark, I guess. Tell me about the hows. Right, we talked about hows and whys. Is one more important than the other these days? Do you focus a lot more on the why than the how? I know they interplay, but how do you see that from an educational standpoint?
Joe Edelman:Well, I mean, at this point in my career, I certainly focus much more on the why than the how. But even in the way that I teach I'll give you an example uh, since I'm generally associated with some kind of portrait work, right? Um, people like to have simple definitions of what makes it good. You know, in especially here in the U? S, but in many countries in the world, you know, we go through grade school or early years and you know there's a, a, a right and a wrong to almost every question and you know we're trying to get that A grade and that kind of sticks with people Right.
Joe Edelman:In photography it's not quite that simple, it's really not. So, you know, portraits are a great example because people say even something as simple as what's the best lens for shooting a portrait. You can appreciate this, because you don't always shoot portraits with short to medium length telephoto lenses, right? So the best lens, the best light, the best background, the best pose, all of that depends on the why. Why are you taking a portrait? How will the portrait be used? Simple examples a portrait that is going to hang in a really elegant living room above the fireplace in an ornate frame is almost certainly going to be shot and lit and composed much differently than a business portrait that's going to be used for a resume or a LinkedIn profile. Those two will very likely be shot much differently, composed and lit much differently than a portrait or portraits that will be used for a dating app, right, or a social, simple social media profile.
Joe Edelman:So what determines is it a good portrait is really based on the why. That so the how comes. You know, after once we know the why, we can certainly get to the how, and at that point I think that in any, any photography situation, if you take a few moments to consider the why of the picture, the how becomes a lot easier, because it's almost kind of like you're dissecting what are the requirements going to be right. We might do that elegant portrait on some type of a colored or texture background that is also going to fit in with the decor of the room, so everything's going to blend together very nicely, whereas the portrait that we're doing for that business headshot or LinkedIn profile or resume portrait is going to be best suited by having a very simple, solid color background clean, white or maybe a black, but more likely maybe a gray or white, that type of thing Right or white, that type of thing right.
Joe Edelman:So once we know the why, it's really a lot easier to figure out what the how should be. And the other thing too, for people that like a right answer to know that they've got it right. Understanding the why really makes it easier for you to kind of evaluate and quantify. Did I get it right? It kind of the why holds you as you're making all of your creative decisions and all of your technical decisions. The why holds you accountable with those decisions. Because if you ignore the why, well then your image fails.
Matt Jacob:That's a great way of putting it Almost. The why before the how, the how kind of comes at the end and even for somebody taking vacation pictures.
Joe Edelman:You see something and we've all had that. You're walking around, you've got a camera with you and you have that. I call it the urge, that moment, like I should take a picture of that. By all means, snap that picture, don't think too much about it, because it might be a moment that's going to be gone forever, right? I find that one of the problems we run into with social media is photographers quickly develop what I call epic apathy and that is the fact that they won't press the button if the picture is not going to be epic. And so many people do it and I don't know about you, but I hate to admit it, I'm even guilty of doing it. Every time I'll have a camera with me. It might be on the front seat of my car, next to me, and I see something. And there's that moment and then I stop. Yeah, but you know the light's not really good, or I don't have a long enough lens, I'm not going to be able to get close enough, and we skip just creating a memory of something that was Ooh, that's cool, right, uh, but I think even when you're out doing that, once you've taken that first image, capture that moment, don't worry about. Is it amazing picture? Is it going to be epic? Is it social media or Instagram worthy? But then ask yourself, what's my why here? Why did I go? What is it about this that I want to be able to communicate and to create with? And so you know, kind of take a beat and then go through the process.
Joe Edelman:I know throughout my career, one of the things and I was very fortunate I had an early mentor point this out to me One of the things that has helped me in every type of photography I found myself getting into is building a workflow, building good habits right.
Joe Edelman:It's creating a discipline. The more that you do that, even as a beginning photographer, the sooner that you can start to get into that idea of having a set of habits, even with the way you choose your exposure settings, everything that you do, kind of having a workflow. That's taking a lot of the multitasking out of the process, because we think we're good at multitasking but we're not. Science tells us that and it's really getting you to the point where you're able to put most of your bandwidth on your subject right. I don't care if your subject's a building. If you're going to make a great picture, you need to be paying more attention to the building than the gear, right? So, yeah, I mean, I think for me that I've been very fortunate. I've kind of always approached things that way, and I find it's a discipline that really helps me make sure that I'm not overlooking things, that I'm not making simple mistakes, obvious mistakes.
Matt Jacob:Epicopathy, love it. I'm definitely going to steal that phrase. I call it the banger mentality. People want bangers because it's Instagram, it's likes, it's validation, and I've seen that so often and, yeah, I've fallen foul to that sometimes as well.
Matt Jacob:I talk about mindful photography a lot lot, just like having that feeling. But being aware of that feeling, whether it is, oh, I really love that composition or that light, I want to take a photo, or it's oh, I didn't take that photo because it's not going to be a banger, right, and then thinking, okay, but why, why, why, why? So I'm glad you touched upon kind of that vacation photography, because not everyone will have kind of an end goal of, okay, this image is for a commercial job and so it has to look like this and it's going to be placed here and it's an editorial, whatever it might be. A lot of people just want to go out and take photos but, like you said, they want that quick answer. But you can't really understand that answer until you really understand. Well, why do I do this, why am I doing this? What do I enjoy about it? Why do I enjoy that part about it?
Matt Jacob:Until you really understand yourself and what you're doing these images for, whether it is just happy snaps on holiday, great, but then at least you understand the reasons behind and therefore you can understand how to go about doing it. So I really love the way you described that. And what about not being able to get what we want in terms of the final images? Or, if you're a professional, having that fear of sucking? I know you've done a few talks on this. I think I saw one on your website or on your YouTube about not being afraid to suck right, if you want to be successful in photography. Tell me more about that, why that's important, how we kind of overcome that fear, yeah, so I mean, I guess being you know, somebody that identifies as Gen X.
Joe Edelman:You know, in my generation if you had a problem or you had anxiety, you were worried about making a mistake. You know, in my generation, if you had a problem or you had anxiety, you were worried about making a mistake. You know, you were pretty much told get your head out of your butt and, you know, deal with it. In all fairness to younger photographers, the world's changed a lot and there is a lot more anxiety and there's. You know, my generation didn't deal with things like 9-11 or any of that kind of stuff school shootings, right. So the world's very different. Didn't deal with things like 9-11 or any of that kind of stuff school shootings, right. So the world's very different. And a lot of people do have those fears. They're worried about failure. It's a stress that makes it very hard. I talk about the don't be afraid to suck. There's a couple pieces to it. One is especially for a new photographer, a young photographer. It's to try and encourage them. You know, don't put that pressure on yourself too early. Um, you touched on the idea before that. You know, even with all the great learning resources we have in YouTube videos, at the end of the day, you've got to go out and pick up a camera. If you don't pick up a camera and take pictures, you are not really going to learn this stuff right? Because it's very experiential and for photographers I like to call it a visual database. In life we kind of have this experiential database that we all build. You know, we start when we're toddlers and our parents tell us don't touch the stove, you'll get burned. Eventually we all touch the stove and we get burned, and then we never do it again intentionally, right? So you know, it's like the idea of, well, as a photographer, okay, uh, trying to take a portrait at high noon in bright sunlight. Once you've done, you can read don't do it and you can understand why you shouldn't do it. But it's not the same as doing it. And especially now, since it's digital and we see it immediately, it's not the same as doing it. And now you have that visual experience so that the next time you go to do a portrait and you see the lighting on that person's face and you don't have strobes, you don't have reflectors you're going to have that trigger oh wait, maybe I better find some shade Boom, and it's going to move you to a better situation. So part of it is just encouraging younger photographers with the idea that you have got to just be willing to try things, and I would much rather see a younger photographer or new photographer just try almost anything. If they're out by themselves and taking pictures and they don't know the solution to try something. Try a couple of things, right For somebody with a little bit more experience. Um, it's really a matter of never let yourself assume that you're that good.
Joe Edelman:Um, so the don't be afraid to suck comes into two, into play, two ways for me. One is uh, if I'm doing a shot, I put a lot of play, especially in my fashion portraits. I put a lot of planning into them. I go into the studio with pretty much everything nailed down the way that I want it to be. Uh, that way I know when I walk into the studio I've kind of created like this perfect storm to create in. It's not about taking the creativity out of the process, it's about, hey, I know that I'm going to start out and I'm going to have something that is what I imagined, but I might get that picture within five minutes of the model walking on the set. I'm not going to pat myself on the back and walk away. Oh no, that's like if that happens to me, that's an opportunity. That's an opportunity to start tweaking the idea, start playing with the idea and see where it can take me.
Joe Edelman:At first it's almost always instinctively little tweaks or things that I've probably done before in other situations, but I want to see if they'll work. Are things that I've probably done before in other situations, but I want to see if they'll work. But the more that I push it, it's trying things. Oftentimes, especially at this point in my career. There's a lot of been there done that between my ears, so a lot of times it's trying things that absolutely make no sense at all, just to see what it's going to leave me with and then say, oh, you know what If I do this to that? Look at this, this is really cool.
Joe Edelman:I never would have thought of putting those two things together and frequently, like even one of the things people like, were shocked that I do it, and I don't understand why they were shocked because planning is so important. But when I was an Olympus ambassador, I would do presentations at like WPPI and PhotoPlus and you're on stage and your task is to do something that's a little splashy. So people that are wandering around at our trade show hall are going to stop and watch, and so I literally, when I would get booked to do those shows, I would make the trade show people at Olympus send me the stage dimensions, because they were always relatively small and very narrow and, of course, you're working in a brightly lit trade show hall. So I would make them send me the stage dimensions. I tape it out on the floor in my studio and I would spend easily four days before traveling to wherever that trade show was with a mannequin, just experimenting with ridiculous ideas that were going to be big and colorful and bright, so that when they showed up on the two 80-inch televisions that were sitting above the stage, people were going to see them from across the trade show hall and stop and come and watch, and that way I could get on stage and just do these incredibly ridiculous things.
Joe Edelman:One year at WPPI I did a shot where I light painted a background on a portrait in real time in a trade show hall with the lights on, because of a feature that Olympus cameras have called live composite. So it was always about you know just what can I do. That's really different, but it's not. Those ideas don't come to you just when you're sitting and you figure it out I mean, every now and then we get lucky but they come to you by sucking at things. It's like literally embracing failure and it's kind of the equivalent of just like throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.
Joe Edelman:But as you develop more and more and more experience, your experience or your visual database will start to connect dots with some of the things that you put together and you realize, oh, you know, I can try this or I can try that, and I think that helps photographers at every level. Like I was looking through your portfolio, you had this one incredibly beautiful backlit portrait, one incredibly beautiful backlit portrait. And you know that's a lighting scenario right out of the box. For a new photographer is like a nightmare lighting scenario, right, you know, I remember even back to the early film days.
Joe Edelman:You know, even inside the roll of film in the Kodak box it would tell you never put your subject in front of a window, right? So I learned that that's a mistake, can't do that. You know. Now backlighting is like one of my favorite portrait lightings to play with because it creates like such a mood. So it is, it's just working. The shot, I think, is really kind of how I'm embracing the idea of failure just to see where I can go and where I can take a shot.
Matt Jacob:I love it. It's almost you don't. You can't get over that fear of sucking without sucking and knowing what sucking feels like Right. So it's like you've got to go out.
Joe Edelman:You just go out and suck yeah, it's unfortunately one of those things I can make it sound so easy to do, but for somebody that is worried about failure, it's hard work.
Matt Jacob:It's hard work to get over that. You're worried about it because you don't know it. You always haven't felt it and maybe you haven't learned from it. If you go out and suck at it, like you said, embrace that failure as long as you learn from that, then the fear in the future at least least dissipates. We're always going to have some kind of fear of of not being good or or failing at something. But yeah, until you, until you just go and do it. And they're just like you said. I just come down to practice. It's pretty much the answer to everything when it comes to photography education. Yeah, just go out and do it. Oh, I don't know what my style is, we'll go and find it. Right, I don't know what I? I don't know what my style is, we'll go and find it.
Joe Edelman:Right, I don't know what I, I don't know why I do it. We'll go and practice Three worst words in the English language in 2025. In my opinion, I don't know. I hate when people tell me that because it's either it is fear, like just failure to try right, that's stopping them, or it's laziness, because we have these incredible tools like Google and YouTube and, you know, ai. They can find us any piece of information that we need if we're willing to put in just the tiniest little bit of effort. Right, so it is. I mean, it's, it's one of those things. I totally respect the fact that for a lot of people it's. It's emotionally challenging, but I think and to be fair, I think maybe the reason it's easier for me now that I'm on the other side of that, with a lot of user experience.
Joe Edelman:When I was young, we didn't have social media, we didn't have the Internet, so most of my photography had an audience of one me. So I had to learn pretty early on the idea of okay, here's this picture, and the only pictures that I could see routinely were pictures in my local newspaper or pictures in popular photography and modern photography magazines or life and look magazines, which were incredible photography, but that's what I had to kind of compare against. So it was a matter of having to look at my own work, not asking somebody else how can I make it better, but looking at my own work and saying, if I could do this again, what would I do? What would I do to make it better? What do I wish I had done differently? And I was very lucky when I did find some mentors in my teen years. They drove me nuts with this and I did not appreciate it at the time, but I learned later they were actually amazing mentors and that would be if I would go to them with a question. They would rarely with a question. They would rarely answer my question Rarely. Instead, they would ask me questions back, and multiple questions, kind of guiding me to the point of proving to me that I could figure it out myself. And every so often there would be that moment where they would stop and be like come here, let me show you something. And that was when they understood I didn't know the next piece of information. So instead of telling me, they would actually give me an experience, show me, and then it was right back to the questions. But they'd never give me the answer and they rarely would give me opinions on my work.
Joe Edelman:Even there was a local newspaper photographer who was the chief photographer of the paper and he was wonderful. He told me to leave pictures at the front desk in an envelope and I would go back the next day and I hardly ever saw him, but I would go back the next day, the envelope would be at the front desk and he would have written comments on the prints, and rarely was it about the photography. Every now and then he would point out something that I should have seen in a print. It was flat or something like that, but his comments were always about the photojournalistic aspect and the storytelling and he was really helping me shape the thought process. Hey, when you're telling a story, if you're photographing a news event, you know, think about these things, notice these things. Um, and they were really incredible teachers, because they were never telling me do it this way, because I do it this way or this is the way it is in a book.
Joe Edelman:And even the idea of rules. I never heard of rules in photography until like the 1990s, early 2000s, especially when the internet came along. That's when rules blew up and I think part of that was a generational change too, because again, people were looking for kind of easy guardrails, so to speak, so that they could say, hey, I'm on the right path, I'm doing it right. How do we know when it's time to break the rules? So I have strong feelings about that. So, first of all, let me say this To any photographer that watches this or listens to this, especially if they, let's say, are age 30 or over of this, especially if they, um, let's say, are age 30 or over, please, please, please, I beg of you, don't be the photographer that ever utters this phrase. Quote you have to learn the rules to break the rules. Unquote.
Joe Edelman:Um, there is plenty of science. It's very simple. It says look, once you know the rules, you're already in the box. You're going to have to work that much harder to get outside the box, which we like to be lazy, I mean, even with technology. What do we do? We make it smaller, lighter, faster, and we get it to do more for us. That's as a society, as a species, that's what we do. So we don't want to make it harder, and I even, you know, I encourage people think about your own experiences when you when I don't care.
Joe Edelman:If you're doom scrolling on Instagram or you're in an art museum or a photo gallery and you see a photograph and it really stops, you Like wow, start to pay attention to how many rules that image follows, because more often than not, you're going to realize it actually doesn't follow a whole lot of rules, right? In fact, if you go to Google and you type in the phrase iconic photographs and then click on the images tab, you'll recognize most of the photos and you'll also notice that a lot of them are not sharp, the composition's horrible, they're fuzzy. They're printed flat, right, they're technically. Technically they suck, by the way we're taught, but yet we hold these images up. They stood the test of time. These are iconic. So why is that? It's the moment, it's what those images up. They stood the test of time. These are iconic, so why is that? It's the moment. It's what those images represent, right? So, if at all possible for somebody that may be brand new if they're listening to this, please pretend you haven't heard about rules and just ignore them. Don't worry about them.
Joe Edelman:There are simple ways to do composition without using rule of thirds and rules. There are simple ways to understand exposure which, unfortunately, in today's digital world 2025,. We're now into the third generation of consumer digital cameras. Most people do not actually understand how those cameras work. With exposure, we still talk about exposure and teach exposure like it was 1999.
Joe Edelman:Like, the cameras don't work that way anymore. The industry has not kept up and the camera companies aren't going to rush that because people don't like change. So they still call everything the way it was back in the film days. So you're better off to not even worry about breaking the rules, but don't worry about them in the beginning. And for people that just think, oh, I'm trying to like sound cool, let me encourage you go do a little bit of research on where those rules came from. It's a little bit of history research. I'm not making this stuff up. The rules were created by people that weren't as creative as those that they admired, so they applied some math, they applied some statistics and they figured out how to do something that's consistently good. But also, as a byproduct, when you follow all those rules, you're creating stuff that is consistently predictable.
Matt Jacob:For me that's boring. 100 agree, uh, people just need to again put in the work, go and learn about why these rules were created and when. Right, they weren't created before photography was invented, that's for sure. Um, so, yeah, it's a really quick and easy exercise for people to do. I totally agree with with everything you said.
Matt Jacob:I think I think it's um, I think it's indicative of of us as humans, like you said, to want to kind of make things formal and put things in boxes so we can kind of tick those boxes as we go. That's where our brain is, is wired problem solution. It's not that. It's not that easy and it doesn't always work, and I would always argue and this is the beauty of the world that we live in today in terms of social media. There's many things wrong about it, but there's some really cool stuff that you can use it for. Go and see what your audience thinks about your images. Fuck the rules, like if the rules, if you don't follow the rules, but you like your images and you have an audience that like your images. Isn't that what this is all about If you find enjoyment and purpose in the way you create those images. Some might do better than others, but there's an audience out there that I'm sure will resonate with what you do and I would expand on one thing you said in there.
Joe Edelman:You said about if you like your images. See what your audience thinks. I don't think we talk enough about if you like your images, especially if you're a young photographer or a new photographer. I don't care if you started photography in your 60s and you're brand new to it. If you're evaluating your images strictly based on what everybody else says God forbid. If you do manage to have some success, you're going to be miserable because evaluating your image is strictly based on what everybody else says God forbid. If you do manage to have some success, you're going to be miserable because you're not going to be doing what you enjoy right.
Joe Edelman:The real key, at least I believe, to good photography is you've got to be able to look at your own work and you've got to be able to be honest with yourself about what do I see. Sure, are there things that other people will see that maybe we don't notice. Are there things that maybe people with more experience will notice? Absolutely, and that can be very helpful. But I would never let my audience or another photographer shape my work, because I'm going to wind up doing stuff that's not me and your audience doesn't really have a vested interest in you. They just like what you're putting out.
Matt Jacob:Well, you're not doing it for the audience. Hence the caveat I said if you like your images, then see what you've got to be, and this goes back to what we're talking at the beginning of the conversation. You have to understand your why. You have to understand what you've got to be, and this goes back to what we're talking at the beginning of the conversation. You have to understand your why. You have to understand what you like, why you like it and also, is this something that you think you can be consistent with or replicate? If this is, you know, you're 100% sure of this.
Matt Jacob:I love doing this. This is my style, this is my voice, this is what I want to put out into the world. You know, whether it follows rules or not. If I'm, if I like these images, then okay, now I'm happy to kind of go and share my voice and share my, not just get validation and likes. That's great and everyone loves it. Let's be honest, but go and share your expression, who you are, with the world in terms of photography. No rules come into that. Uh, yeah, I totally get it. Can you think of any principle in 54 years doing photography, any principle or rule, or certainly a photography principle you might have sworn by early on in your career, only to later realize it was wrong. Can you think of anything?
Joe Edelman:Honestly no, but I have to. Let me explain why. When I got hooked on photography when I was 11, probably within that first year, I tried to do the responsible thing and I went to the library and said, OK, I want to get a book about composition because I had seen stuff about that in a photography magazine and I wanted to get a book about exposure and just photography in general. So I go to the library and the only book on composition it was like bigger than the Bible, it's huge, right. And so I checked that one out. And I checked out another book that had a really good section about exposure and it even had a section about Ansel Adams' own system and all that kind of stuff. So I was like, great, I'm going to read this. And I brought them home and my first mistake was, okay, I'm going to do composition first, where I really should have done the basics first. But nonetheless I start reading the composition book. I didn't even make it halfway through the first chapter. I got about halfway through the first chapter, which was really kind of laying out like these are all the rules that we're going to talk about, these are all the things you know and I'm reading about Fibonacci, spirals and all this stuff. And I had this moment of clarity, which has fortunately served me well. And that moment of clarity was, if I have to remember all these things and I have to think about all of these things before I press the button, I'm never going to get around to pressing the button. Right, it's like it's like it's. It was overwhelming. So I literally, like that's it, closed the book and went back to the library, and that's when I just kind of decided you know what? And that's when I just kind of decided you know what I'm enjoying, what I'm doing, and I think I'm learning, so I'm going to shoot, and that was it, and I didn't worry about it. I think.
Joe Edelman:Where I first really got introduced at like any kind of rules or principles that I threw away pretty quickly, I had found a local portrait photography studio that was about a quarter of a mile from my house and it was run by two young guys, and I walked in one day at my father's push and asked them if I could hang out, sweep the floors, whatever, just to be able to learn, and they said sure. So I started going there. I was still in middle school. I started going there every day after school. These were the guys that taught me how to do dark and work into print and they taught me portraiture and, um, I respected them because they were good. Uh, they knew what they were talking about, but I hated their portraits. They know I would say this Um they were talking about, but I hated their portraits. They know I would say this um, they were boring and people and they were all the same number one and people pretty much looked like they had a stick up their butt, uh, but they, you know.
Joe Edelman:So the early day rules and principles were, you know, okay. So first of people are vertical, so portraits have to be vertical. Can't do this today, but back in the day, if you're photographing a man, you shoot slightly up. If you're photographing a woman, you shoot slightly down. That doesn't work today at all and it shouldn't, right.
Joe Edelman:So there were kind of all these guidelines, right, it's two to one lighting ratios. You know some Rembrandt light, all this stuff. So even hair lights. To this day I will never use a hair light. In one of my shots I'll do rim lights, but I won't use a hair light only because it gives me flashbacks, like a little bit of PTSD with lighting. It gives me flashbacks to when I was a teenager, it's like you know.
Joe Edelman:But that was kind of, I think, where I started to get a little bit of my rebellious mentality with lighting, because I was much more curious about lighting and this lighting was. It was always the same, it was very predictable, it was kind of really boring. So I think that's really, you know, I never I learned more about composition in terms of the rules when I started teaching, because anytime I would do a YouTube video. Sure, I could probably talk about that topic for two hours. But I also knew that the world has changed a lot since I first learned it, so I wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing stuff. I really wanted to provide value, so I'd go out and research everything, Even things like the exposure triangle.
Joe Edelman:When I started doing YouTube, I kept reading about this thing called the exposure triangle and I'm like I don't remember ever learning this and people are like, oh my God, it's been around forever. How could you not learn the exposure triangle? Well, you know what the best part of the exposure triangle is? Number one, aside from the fact that it doesn't work, it's a joke. It didn't exist before 1990. And even in 1990, it wasn't called the exposure triangle. All it was was a reference in a book by Brian Peterson, a book called understanding exposure Great book, by the way, except for this piece and all he says is yeah, when you're talking about shutter speed and aperture and ISO, I like to think of it as a photographic triangle, Because you have to worry about the relationships.
Joe Edelman:The phrase exposure triangle didn't show up until 2005. So we were already into the digital era. And it's in a book written by a gentleman named Jim Miyake, called Better Photo Guide to Digital Photography. By the way, at the time, and not to be snide, but Jim Miyake, when he wrote this book, was a web developer for Alaska Airlines. That was his day job. And he references Peterson's photographic triangle and says I think it would be better served if we called it an exposure triangle. And then it wasn't until 2006 when an actual triangle showed up on the Internet.
Joe Edelman:And to this day I have a lot of fun with it because people tell me oh, I learned about it, you know, and it is OK. So I asked do me a favor, Explain the exposure triangle to me, Explain to me what it does. And people are like it's like, well, you know, it's like it's shutter speed and aperture and ISO, and you know, understanding, and I was just like, okay, but you didn't actually explain to me what it does. Like, how does the exposure triangle help you? And they can't, they can't, they can't explain it because it doesn't do anything. Um, so basically it comes down to the idea. So what you're telling me is you need a triangle to remember the names of three features on your camera, because the triangle doesn't actually show you how those features work. And then I really blow people's minds because I'd like to really make people think you may disagree with this. So we can talk about it if you do.
Joe Edelman:I point out to people that there are only two exposure settings, not three. The only two exposure settings are shutter speed and aperture. Iso is not, and never has been an exposure setting, Because in the film days the ISO was determined by the film. So you took a roll of film off the shelf, the only setting was to tell the camera's light meter. This is the film I'm using and with digital cameras, iso does not change the sensitivity of your sensor. Your sensor only has one sensitivity. The iso is applied after you take the picture. So is ISO is nothing more than gain. It's like a volume control in a stereo Brighter and darker, right, that's it.
Joe Edelman:So, yeah, I mean I find myself throwing away more principles today, because I do I find that we have a problem with all of this resource information that we have. All too often it's pieces of information and still, industry-wide, we talk about all this stuff like it was the last century. But since the last century we are now into I consider it to be the third generation of digital cameras. We started with DSLRs, then we got mirrorless, which are the most amazing thing ever, but already now we've got this global shutter, which is going to become a standard. Completely makes sense. Why wouldn't it? Right, that's going to take another 10 years for that to happen, but we're easily into the third generation of cameras and we're not changing the way that we teach photography and think about these things.
Joe Edelman:We still have features on the cameras that people swear by, but they really don't make any sense. Like you know, birding photographers got to shoot on, you know, aperture priority or shutter priority, it doesn't matter, those are two automatic settings aperture priority, shutter priority. They make no sense with a mirrorless camera none whatsoever. Why would you let the camera control a setting that is going to have a dramatic impact on the visual aspect of your photograph, as opposed to just let the camera deal with brightness up and down right, and then control that with an exposure compensation dial. So, like the way that I teach exposure, choose your shutter speed with purpose, because shutter speed is a purpose-driven setting right. It's going to determine is your subject sharp, there's no movement, or do you want movement or are you making sure you don't have camera movement from a heavy camera? The lens you're using. Aperture is more of an emotion driven setting right. Really shallow aperture is going to give us a dreamy bokeh and really razor thin focus, Whereas a lot of depth of field is going to give us a lot of detail and really can bring us into a scene right, Depending on the lens you're using, etc.
Joe Edelman:Those are two settings that we should really never leave up to the camera. You know, back in the DSLR days, yes, digital noise was a major problem In mirrorless cameras. Now they can handle better. You know, higher ISOs. Plus, we've got some incredible noise tools now, both with AI and without AI. So it makes no sense to leave one of those really important settings up to the camera which the camera can never understand what's in our mind's eye. The camera can do a great job with averaging things and what it sees, but it can never understand our intent. What it sees, but it can never understand our intent. So so I think I do more of the throw the principles out the window now than I ever did.
Matt Jacob:This is why you're a successful teacher. You can distill these, these things down and make people not just teach the information, but make people think about it. Right and um, you've just given us a great example of that, and I couldn't agree with you more on all of the above. Where do phones fit into this? I'm interested in you know what you talked about third generation of cameras. Do you think that phone cameras will kind of be a bigger part of the photography industry, or do you think they'll always be lagging in terms of you know the technology that you can fit into a phone?
Joe Edelman:lagging in terms of you know, the tech technology that you can fit into a phone, um, I, so I'm not one of those photographers is like anti-phone. I mean, I probably take as many pictures on my phone as I do my Sony A1s, right? Um, but yeah, I think there will always be a difference or jump from what we're going to see the phones able to do to what we can do with the real cameras, if you will. Certainly, what we're able to do with phones now is incredible, right, I mean, we think back to the film days where George Eastman brought us the Brownie camera and it was revolutionary. Gosh, iphones make that look like child's play, just in terms of how much it revolutionized, you know, an entire industry. Um, I, I do find more and more people using phones for professional work. Um, I see no reason why you can't. But even there, it comes back to the why, like, why are you doing the shot? I would not be able to shoot sports on an iPhone, not as well as I can with a Sony A1, right?
Matt Jacob:Let me ask you a question that might be able to kind of open this up a little bit more, because this is a good teaching question, I think, for people to think about who are so concerned with the technical stuff. If we stripped away all cameras and gear tomorrow, leaving only our phones, do you think great photographers would still stand out? Oh, absolutely.
Joe Edelman:Absolutely. I mean, we all know it's not about the gear. I just had to make sure my wife can't hear that, right, that's the running joke, of course. Not allowed to use that electronic nail gun anymore. I'm taking it away. They may struggle if they're a new carpenter and they've never had to build with a hammer, but they're going to be able to build with a hammer and an accomplished carpenter can build with a hammer just the same as they can with an electronic nail gun, right? So, yeah, I mean, the tools that we have are tools that allow us to do our work easier, more efficiently and, in some ways, better, depending on the tool. But, yeah, a good photographer is a good photographer. You know, if you hand them a digital point and shoot, they're going to take a few minutes to understand how does that camera work? What control do they have, and they'll solve problems with it. You know, um, even if you know I had to shoot sports, if I had to shoot a sports picture, you know, with an iPhone, well then, okay, what are the things that I know I can control? Well, I'm going to do everything possible to make sure that action that I'm about to photograph is coming towards me or away from me, because if it's going across the frame not likely I'm going to be able to freeze that action, but if I can change my angle to do the shot, I can get away with a lot more right. So it's kind of understanding, depending on what you're photographing, what control do you have? What can you? You know impact. What control do you have? What can you? You know, impact? Um, but that's all on the gear side, which you know to your point. I think you know.
Joe Edelman:Part of what experienced photographers and really creative photographers are able to do is, you know, look at the world a little bit differently, like, like for me, you know, when I see younger photographers even like yourself, you know I I see people, um, that haven't been shooting for that long, or shooting nearly as long as I have, and and look, I'll be honest, I hate all of them just a little bit, because what I see in their work is a way that they look at the world and I don't see the world that way and I wish I did Right. I think one of the things that's helped me a lot just being able to make a career out of this is I'm a bit of a marketing nerd. I kind of have a natural understanding of marketing, business and that kind of stuff, but at the same time that also makes me a little bit OCD. The detail-oriented aspect has helped me in my photography but it can also kind of limit, I think, the creativity sometimes.
Joe Edelman:So I see things that so many younger photographers are doing because they haven't gotten to the point yet where they're dealing with the burden of running a business and all these things. So it is just about the creativity and I'm jealous. I'm incredibly jealous, not because I have these burdens I'm blessed to have these burdens but I just don't see things the way they do. And I think for me that's always when I get jealous of another photographer, it's always that it's not an accomplishment that somebody's made, because if they've made this accomplishment I know how hard they've worked. Good for them. I'm like that's incredible. But when I'm seeing somebody that's just got this amazing way of looking at the world, that I get jealous of because that's a gift that they were given and they're learning to tap into that, and I'm still trying to get that creative Right, um so yeah, I don't know, it's an ongoing pursuit, isn't it?
Matt Jacob:It's, uh, it's it's figuring out how to, how to enjoy that pursuit. How do you, how do you see the photography industry at this moment and in the future in terms of business opportunities? Where, where can people really kind of focus? I know that's a it's just a very general question and there's so many kind of sectors and nuances, but you know, if someone's someone's coming to you and saying, joe, uh, I really want to do photography as as full-time, where do I start? What would you recommend?
Joe Edelman:Well, I'd probably start out with a joke and tell them to go get another job. But no, because that's the running joke, right? No, I mean, I think for me, when somebody hands me a question like that, I'll ask them some things about what they're shooting, what they like to shoot, how long they've been shooting. Um, I think what we have, you know, cause we hear a lot of whining, just straight talk. We hear a lot of whining oh, it's so hard to make money today because everybody's a photographer. That's complete bullshit. That is not the case at all. There are just as many photographers now do the math as I say this. All. There are just as many photographers Now do the math as I say this. Right, there are just as many photographers today making great money as there were in the 90s, in the 80s, in the 70s. But what we have today that's different than the 90s, the 80s and the 70s, not the digital cameras. We have a that's different than the 90s, the 80s and the 70s, not the digital cameras. We have a whole lot more photographers. We have a whole lot more photographers with, oftentimes, a false sense of capability who think wouldn't it be cool if I could make money with this camera. In fact, I'll be honest, I've only ever met two kinds of photographers that want to make money, or I should say two reasons for starting. I've never met another variation. It's always one. Wouldn't it be cool if I could make some money with this camera because I could buy more gear? That's version one, or version two, which is the truly crazy one, because you and I can appreciate this one is wouldn't it be awesome if I could pay my bills with this camera? Right, and what none of those people understand I didn't understand it is that the minute you actually make that decision, all the rules change. Right, that's the, that's the real challenge. But, um, so I I think you know, realistically, there are still just as many photographers there's not more today, but these are photographers who are doing very high quality work. These are photographers that aren't worried about social media and all that kind of stuff. They are photographers that are focused on high-end clients, right, clients that have very high expectations, very big budgets, et cetera. That number has not reduced. There's just as much demand today at that level.
Joe Edelman:When we hear about companies leaning more into AI and that I think where AI is going to have the biggest negative impact on photographers. It's photographers in the middle and photographers at the bottom right, and what I mean by that is it's going to be smaller companies and much smaller small businesses that are going to be much quicker to dive into using AI for what they're doing because they don't have the advertising budgets and their production budgets. The big companies, the high-end companies they're still spending the money, they're still spending the big bucks because they understand just how important that kind of imagery is and how it needs to be unique and special. And even when you see a company like Coca-Cola do a completely AI television commercial, did Coca-Cola do that because they want to start using AI? Of course not. They did it because they knew that they would get a lot of press when they did it. Right, coca-cola is going to keep producing television commercials the same way they have been. Same with companies like Budweiser and all those Right. So the high end shooters I don't think that that's going to change that much.
Joe Edelman:I think that for somebody that's coming to me that question like what should I focus on? What do I need to do me, that question like what should I focus on? What I need to do? Um, I encourage people don't focus on the business until you have to. In other words, if, if you're, if you consider yourself a photographer that's still learning and you're still improving, uh with with a ways to go yet, then now's not time to go into business. Go into business where you've got people basically ready to hand you money and requesting, right that you, you do stuff. Um, that's a really kind of.
Joe Edelman:To me, the ideal indicator that says you're doing work that is special, you're doing work that is creating its own demand Is too many photographers that kind of put the cart before the horse with the business. They're the ones that are complaining well, there's too much competition, but yet I've never had competition. I can't imagine that you actually have competition for the work you do, because I've just always done me. And then the challenge is find the people that appreciate what I do. You know we do get so hung up in social media and all that kind of stuff.
Joe Edelman:Business today for a photographer is no different and this will really irritate some people, but I firmly believe this. It's no different than it was in the 1980s when I first opened a portrait and wedding studio. Right, the mediums were different. Right, Advertising for me in the mid 1980s Word of mouth. We still have word of mouth, but we also have social media, which push word of mouth faster and broader, which is amazing, so better now. Media which pushed word of mouth faster and broader, which is amazing, so better now.
Joe Edelman:And if you were making money, you could afford to put an ad in the yellow pages, because that's where people went to find a photographer and yellow pages were expensive, right. So you had to be making money or you were going in the hole just on the yellow pages. Today we do have all these incredible platforms which you know. Yes, they require a little bit of effort, but any marketing does, but you can do it for free. You don't have to spend money. So when you factor that, that we have that access. If you're just doing the same thing that everybody else is doing, yes, you're really, you're being lazy and you're asking to fail.
Joe Edelman:Every person on this planet is unique to themselves. We share lots of commonalities, of course, but we're all individuals. We all have our own individual experiences and everything through life we have a uniqueness to it. You have to lean into that uniqueness and you have to be you.
Joe Edelman:From a market, purely a marketing standpoint, there are some things that you have to be smart enough to not try and reinvent the wheel, because if your customer is like a wedding photographer, one of my favorites in the wedding world is the word investment Way to make your services sound ridiculously expensive, right, instead of just saying it's the rate okay. Fortunately it's not as popular today, but go back about 10 years, that was the big thing in wedding photography in this country. So if you live in a town and you've got five other wedding photographers and they all use that word investment, okay, you may want to use that for your link, because there's a good chance that people are going to look at other photographers as well, but it doesn't mean that you're going to create the same packages. In fact, it doesn't mean if you're smart, you're going to put prices on your website because you don't want people to make a decision about your photography on the internet. People are going to talk to you, right? You want to be able to interact with them, those kinds of things. So I think you have to lean into your individuality and I think that there's opportunities with phones.
Joe Edelman:I think and let's face it, history tells us we are still in the early days of digital photography, which means we don't even really know where this is going to go yet. And people get all freaked out about AI. Even though our cameras have had AI for over 10 years now, they just didn't call it AI right. Eye tracking, autofocus, all that kind of stuff that's AI right. So the neat part of it is is we can only even begin to imagine where all this technology is going to go and potentially make it even more accessible, with even more people taking great pictures. That means even more people thinking wouldn't it be cool if I could make money with this? But at the end of the day, what you and I have talked about, it's going to be the people that put in the practice, put in the work, build a foundation. It's not about going out and learning every marketing trick under the sun and learning how to master social media under the sun. If your work is great, people are going to notice you on social media. You don't have to be killing yourself on social media.
Joe Edelman:Photography is a very selfish pursuit.
Joe Edelman:Nobody bought a camera because they want to do it for somebody else.
Joe Edelman:We fall in love with photography because we love it, we enjoy it, but if you want to make money, you have to realize it's not about you anymore, it's about your client. So the real question comes how much value are you providing? And I don't mean how cheap are you or how much do you give for a certain fee, it's how much do people really appreciate your work, the quality of your work, and then, when they're interacting with you, how easy are you making the process? How much empathy do you show? I mean even gosh, look at your work. I mean to do the kind of portrait work that you do. If you're not able to show empathy when you meet someone with a camera in places like that, you're not getting pictures, you're not going to get to hang around people and and you know, create those kinds of images and and that's something I think we don't talk about enough and we don't teach enough Um, so I I think that there's opportunity with any kind of camera, but it's all about being creative and and building a foundation.
Matt Jacob:I love it and being authentic to yourself. And I think we see in the the problem with with new photographers in the space. In my opinion, what I see um is is social media. They look at people who are doing well on social media in terms of photographers and they, they, they feel like, oh well, I kind of have to copy and paste that so that I could grow on social media and they lose their identities as identity as who they want to be as a photographer. And I see it shifting. I see that industry standard shifting. Certainly with social media.
Matt Jacob:People now want that authenticity, like you mentioned. They want that connection with the person, with the photographer, and that story behind the person and that individuality of the images. So, you know, I always say to people there is an audience for everyone. It's such a still. So I think there's more photographers than ever, but still there's more than enough to go around in terms of audience capture and I think we seem to forget that because we live in our echo chamber of a little bubble of social media. If you create what you want to create, you will find it's just the difficult thing is finding your audience in order to sell to them, and then you can start thinking about business and stuff. We often see it that the topsy turvy the wrong way around. Well, I'll go and do what I see other people doing. Well, and then I'll either burn out or not enjoy what I'm doing because I've kind of tried to fit into someone else's area.
Joe Edelman:Well, yeah, that's like the photographer that shoots landscapes, love shooting landscapes, but says you know what? I think I'll do portraits because I know I can make money doing portraits. Yeah, like, yeah, you're going to be miserable shooting portraits, exactly.
Matt Jacob:And and you're probably not going to do as good job because you won't enjoy it. So easier said than done. But and I think the same with AI. I think, yeah, we don't anyone who thinks they can give an answer about AI in the future. Ai is wrong because we just don't know. Even just technology generally, it's just moved so fast, exponentially so. But I think what I do believe in whether I know if it's right or not is that as AI and technology progresses, we as human beings will value more human interaction, will value authenticity more. Those photographers and those artists that stay true to their voice and their identity and their style, whatever it might be, whatever your little USP of individuality might be, people will be craving that in the future and therefore I think we'll see a time where photographers will earn more. I think that the photographers that remain in that top echelon that you're talking about, they'll be able to charge more. People will value that work more. That's how I see it.
Joe Edelman:I completely agree, and I think history even tells us to some degree that that is going to happen. Nothing ever stays the same, but things do tend to repeat to a degree historically. I do think that maybe it's not our current generations, but it's going to be younger generations that are going to come up. That will, you know, we'll, we'll, certainly they'll, put a lot of value in that. I mean even even comparing, you know, baby boomers to um millennials and especially Gen Z. Gen Z is much more in tune with hey, if I'm going to spend money, what's the experience going to be like? Right, I'm not worried about, am I going to have a tangible takeaway? Whereas baby boomers, it's all about the tangibles. Right, just just give me the tangible right. Um. So, yeah, I completely agree with you.
Joe Edelman:I think that it will completely turn upside down. Um, and let's face it. I mean, I know, even in this country, with, uh, with the political climate you know we're dealing with, um, a lot of people are avoiding social media like the plague at this point because they don't want that stress to deal with. It's kind of hard to escape it. Uh. So even that in and of itself, I think it's going to start to create a generational shift where, um, I think that will actually even help creativity, because people are going to look for other avenues to, you know, to spend their time and to do things. So I do, I think it, when it comes to what we're talking about with photography and creativity, I think it will wind up having a very positive impact.
Matt Jacob:I love it. Joe, thanks for your prophetic insights and I'll keep watching the space. Is there anything that that I haven't kind of covered that you feel is important to talk about or to?
Joe Edelman:say no, matt, I got gotta tell you I've really enjoyed the conversation. These are, these are actually great questions, and they're things that I don't really get to talk about that much, so, um, no, I really appreciate it.
Matt Jacob:Where? Where can people find you um in in terms of what you, what you do, talk about?
Joe Edelman:Best starting point is starting my website, uh, joelettelmancom. You'll find, of course, links to all my socials there. There are about 200 different articles on all different aspects of photography and studio lighting for the United States, of every camera club and PPA affiliate in the entire country. So if you're looking to find groups in your area, especially if you're just beginning, I really encourage you. Find a camera club, find like-minded people that you can spend some time with and learn from, and if you happen to be into working with models and doing fashion portraits and all the kind of stuff I do, there's a directory on there of modeling agencies all across the us, as well as makeup artists all across the us. There's a lot of good resources on there. I love those directions you put together.
Matt Jacob:It was just such a such a problem that I saw in the photography world just like, why, how do I even go about finding, like people would say, oh, do a model course, I don't do a model call Like, wait, where can I find this and that and that? So I love what you've done with all of this and I think the photography industry is is so much better for having you in it and you doing these, these types of ventures. So I wish you all the best. I want to thank you so much for joining me and being part of this conversation and hope to you know, hope people learn from you. I know they have and I hope they continue to do so. So, yeah, thanks so much, joe, my pleasure, Matt.
Joe Edelman:Thanks for having me.
