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 Secret Behind Joel Grimes’ Iconic Photography Style E098
Joel Grimes doesn’t just take photographs, he creates illusions that make the impossible feel real.
In this episode, we dive deep into the mind of a true master, exploring how he uses light, shadow, and imagination to redefine what photography can be.
From his early experiments with lighting to the techniques behind his most iconic images, Joel takes us behind the scenes of a creative process that blends art, science, and pure intuition.
Whether you’re an aspiring photographer, a creator chasing your own signature style, or simply someone who loves the magic behind incredible imagery, this episode will change the way you think about capturing the world.
Prepare to see photography in a completely new light and discover the secrets that have made Joel Grimes an icon in the world of visual storytelling.
Follow Joel Grimes
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joelgrimesworkshops/
Website: https://www.joelgrimes.com/
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(00:00) Intro
(01:59) Why Joel Grimes is Called an “Illusionist”
(06:01) Composites: Balancing Artistry and Commercial Work
(13:23) How Gatekeepers and Purists Respond to Composites
(20:01) Building Resilience Against Criticism in Photography
(23:26) Why Learning Rejection is Key for Photographers
(26:25) Photography in the Age of AI and Social Media
(38:33) Techniques for Creating Larger-Than-Life Portraits
(47:35) Behind Joel’s Navajo “Portrait of a Nation” Project
(54:00) The Role of Books in a Photographer’s Career and Legacy
(58:01) What Teaching Photography Taught Joel Grimes
(01:04:34) What’s Next After 40+ Years in Photography
(01:07:26) Joel Grimes’ One Core Principle for New Photographers
Message me, leave a comment and join in the conversation!
Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can also watch this episode on my YouTube channel (link below) where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as my social media, so make sure to follow me on Instagram, Twitter, Threads and TikTok or check out my website for my complete portfolio of work.
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I made 3,000 cold calls my first year that I was in that studio. I only got 10 jobs that whole year. That's a whole lot of rejection. Overnight I went from $1,500 a day raise to $10,000 a day raise. Once I let go of this idea that I was trying to chase reality my work- exploded.
Speaker 2:For someone starting out today, a photographer who looks at the industry and thinks I have to have a social media presence, I have to have a good portfolio, I have to be a good marketer when do I fit and where do I start? As a photographer today, I would say Welcome to the Mood Podcast. I'm covering the art of conversation through the lens of photography and creativity, one frame at a time. I'm your host, matt Jacob. Thank you again for joining me in today's conversation. And my guest this week is Joel Grimes, a master illusionist behind the lens whose bold, high-impact portraits have become a signature style across the commercial and creative world. With a career spanning over four decades, joel has photographed Olympic athletes, celebrities and global campaigns, while continually reinventing what it means to create a portrait and, quite frankly, a photograph. He's been named a Canon Explorer of Light, a Westcott Top Pro Elite, an Adobe Photoshop feature artist and, most recently, a Canon Legend photographer.
Speaker 2:But behind all the awards and accolades is an artist who sees photography not just as documentation but as construction, as theater, as visual storytelling rooted in craft and vision, and in my conversation with him, we unpack how Joel went from a film student in Arizona to a global educator and creative force. We explore his belief that every face is unique, his evolution into complex composites and optical trickery, and why teaching has become as central to his art as the work itself. We also dive into questions of authenticity, endurance, personal voice and the business of building a lasting creative life in an ever-changing industry. This is a conversation about lighting, yes, but it's also about legacy reinvention and the courage to make your own rules. Let's get into it. Here is Joel Grimes. Joel Grimes, welcome to the Mood Podcast. Thanks for joining me in your RV in the middle of nowhere. Really appreciate it. Thanks, matt.
Speaker 1:I appreciate having to be on your show here.
Speaker 2:Joel, I've been following your work for many years, so it's a privilege to sit across from you, from the other side of the world at least, and dive into some of the things that interest me but hopefully will interest everyone else. And the first thing that kind of came to mind which actually I didn't know, that this, I guess, label had been slapped on you. But this label of illusionist, you know, I've read, I've read it, um, I don't know if it's self-proclaimed label or what's what other people have kind of um attributed to you, but your approach can be described that of an illusionist. So I wanted to start off by you explaining that for us.
Speaker 1:I think when I started out in photography, I was a landscape photographer and I thought and I think maybe a lot of us go through this but I thought that a photograph was a true, real representation of the world around. I mean, I expose, uh, light through a lens onto a piece of film and for some reason I was thinking well, this is, I guess, one step from reality. But if you think about a black and white image is not the real world, and when you do a shallow depth of field, we don't see that. If you do a 500 millimeter telephoto, compacting things, we don't see that. Super wide angle, our eyes don't see that. We have a pretty good angle of view.
Speaker 1:But, um, so it really wasn't until, probably, I would say, when the, when the digital sort of come along and I started doing composites.
Speaker 1:That's when things really hit the fan in terms of trying to define what I was doing. In terms of trying to define what I was doing, and at first what I did was I said well, look, ansel Adams, he manipulated the dark room, he was an artist and I would say he was a technician, a scientist, chemist, all those things Very technical and proficient. But it wasn't until I tried to define photography and I love the idea of being labeled a photographer. I have been surrounded by cameras and taking pictures, making a living with a camera, for 40 years. So when I started doing two parts a subject in a studio and then, of course, a backdrop, a background, putting those two together and trying to make it look as real as possible, you know I got all this slack. I mean people were, hey, I mean, I mean this is a little bit before all the social media outlets we have now, but I think I had Flickr and there was a few other outlets that people would pipe in and just say you know, I sold my soul to the devil.
Speaker 2:And so was this what 20 years ago or so 25 years ago, I would say about 15, 17.
Speaker 1:See, it's got to be about 17 years ago, because I was turning 50 at that time and I sat down to reinvent myself and so the composite thing kind of came out of my client work and a lot of budgets were being slashed and so, instead of taking an athlete into a stadium, having a crew of 25 people, a motorhome, changing out whatever I could do in two parts and I could have a lot less people than I needed and I could make more money. Actually, in the end, I actually made more money because I didn't have to pay all the people. But I started doing composites because of my clients, not really because I thought well, this is a direction I should go in.
Speaker 2:It was a commercial need more than an artistic desire.
Speaker 1:Yes, but I quickly realized something that I could take an athlete inside a white sweep or whatever gray sweep and I could do you know 30 different scenario things. You know jumping, you know close up all these things. And then I was building a library of background and so a lot of times I could just go into my library and start picking stadiums. So for 10 years, every free moment, I was out shooting background. I built I don't know thousands upon thousands of backgrounds and I would sneak into stadiums and sometimes I'd jump the fence and I never got thrown in jail, but I would do these. You know backdrops, and so I had this library and so I could start putting all this stuff together backdrops and so I had this library and so I could start putting all this stuff together very quickly and the clients went crazy. They loved it, and sometimes I'd have to go out and find a specific background. But I was basically my own stock agency on background, and so the other thing that I discovered was that, let's say, I take an athlete out into the field and I set my lights up and I'm you know, I've got a whole crew and trying to do a specific thing for a client. You know, maybe I could pull off a couple of shots before the light went, before the end of the, you know, before I had to tear down, but in a studio I could get so many more angles and then I could find these backgrounds and do some some things I could never do in terms of perfect lighting, perfect background, perfect, you know, sort of mirroring the two images together. And I started cranking that stuff out, just putting it on Flickr and things, and that's what launched me in terms of the exposure to the world of other photographers. It was my composites, and so it was during that time that I I I don't know if I said it or someone said you know, you're just an illusion, you're not. You know, you're not. Well, I think in some ways people say you're not a real photographer and, uh, I would say, well, define that, define photography is Well, you know, they couldn't really do it. Everybody had a different definition, and so what I did was, through this whole process, I realized something In the end, I'm just an artist with a set of tools and I'm creating something that, yes, it could be realistic An athlete standing in a stadium. I add some drama, some clouds, maybe a bird, a couple of birds flying through the background. Whatever it is, I add some drama to it and then that's my image. So, like I said, I realized that, in a way, photography can't be defined because there's so many different ways that you can look at and there's no such thing as a no photograph is reality. You can't achieve it, you can't achieve perfect skin tone, you can't achieve the real world around us. But I can do a representation and I can fool my audience into believing it could be a real scenario. But it's not real, it's still fake. And how you choose, what lens you use, how you approach it is going to determine the final look. You know the final, the final look that you're, you know, hopefully trying to reach, and so it's an artistic, it's an artistic process and I love that. I love it.
Speaker 1:I don't do composites anymore. I mean, I haven't done a composite probably in maybe, maybe a handful of five years. So I'm doing all in camera stuff now. But but I went through a period where I did a lot of deposits and I was fine with that. But and here's what's really funny I would, I'd go out in the field and I would shoot a picture very dramatic, lighting, everything put it together and people thought it was a composite. And then I would get someone say, well, you know, you didn't do a very good job perspective-wise, putting that person in the background. I'm like, well, actually it's not a composite. So a lot of people would try to dish me and whatever, which is fine. You have to be thick-skinned to do what I do or be an artist. So to me it wasn't about what tools you used. It was, it was about the end result. So that whole transition from film to digital really kind of rocked my world and my definitions of things, and I think it was for the good. And so now, but here's what's really interesting Once I let go of this idea that I was trying to chase reality, my work exploded.
Speaker 1:Now think about that. So if you're, I got so many friends who are like, well, you know, I'm using this camera and I'm using this whatever to get the perfect skin tone, I go, you'll never achieve perfect skin tone. What I go, you can't. It's impossible, you know, and we can get close. It never can be perfect. If you're trying to get perfect, even when you look at someone, think about this. Okay, if you take someone out into the world and you want to do a really good picture. And you want to do a really good picture. There's about 500 scenarios that you could put that person in which is really bad lighting, and there's maybe a dozen that are good lighting right. So do I want to put someone in the real world raking sunlight across their face? In fact, where I'm at right now, it's not very good lighting. I'm sitting in a motorhome, you know, but if I was in my studio, I'd make my face look a little softer.
Speaker 1:You know, take it 10 years off me, but my job as an artist is to go out and for my clients, or whatever I'm doing, is to create an image that would make that person look as best as I could possibly make them. If it's an athlete, I want them to look like a superhero. If they're a CEO and they're five foot two, I make them look like they're six foot two. I do all sorts of things to make someone look powerful, to look beautiful, to look whatever it is that I'm trying to achieve in the end, and so I'm not trying to achieve reality, I'm actually trying to achieve a world that's kind of a world of fantasy, a little bit it's, you know. So I want someone to hire me.
Speaker 1:So I take a picture A lot of athletes I've photographed over the years. They later say best picture I've ever taken of them, and they're someone that gets a lot of pictures taken. So I go oh, that's great, I love that. I love being told you know, I did a good job and they like it. I don't want the opposite. They say that picture that you did of me sucks, you know. So I'm trying to achieve a world of fantasy and it's a bit of an illusion, right, you're trying to sell something that, um, you know, I guess in a way it's not real. It's a little bit on the fantasy side.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think, uh, you know, it all comes down to a few things. One is just intent and how you're going to use the image. Like, you're not going to use that image for, maybe, photojournalism and try and win world press awards, right, because it's, you know, a composite is not real and it has to be real for, well, real is also a an interesting word, because we all have our own perspective and perceptions on what we see and everyone sees things differently. And it's like going up to a woman and saying, well, you can't wear makeup because it's not real. It's like, well, you know what is reality? Uh, so look, if you're going around saying these photos are reality, that's a bit different, right? So it it's. It's also to do with what, the message that you're sending.
Speaker 2:But you're absolutely right the for these gatekeepers and these purists and I think I mean correct me if I'm wrong, because you're at the forefront of it, but I think the hate or the distaste for that has got less, or there's a bit more understanding now with all of the tools that we have over the last decade and the speed at which the technology is constantly increasing. But these purists and gatekeepers, they just stand in people's way. They don't really understand, like you said, what the word photography means and how we use tools to create art. It's not the other way around. We don't use art to create photographs.
Speaker 1:Photography is just a conduit to create an output of whatever we want that output to be right yeah, even a photojournalist has a bias that is going to creep into their photographs and, in fact, most photojournalists not most, let me back up many photojournalists are photo activists. They're not really photojournalists. They have an agenda that they're trying to achieve and they at all costs will go for that.
Speaker 2:That is an absolutely interesting point because I was speaking to a photojournalist a few days ago and he was talking about some of his experiences where you go into a war zone or you go into a specific situation and it's all set up for them anyway and there's multiple photographers all lined up shoulder to shoulder getting almost a not a contrived shot, but the environment is contrived and it's paid for by huge multimedia conglomerate, media conglomerates, who just basically want their narrative and they want the photographer to fit into that narrative. So you're absolutely right in that sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we're in a world that is changing, obviously, with AI and a lot of things. Recently I did a post on AI presets, so you have to back up. Everybody wants not everybody, but a good portion of people want to do, they want to have whatever they do speed up. Everybody wants not everybody, but a good portion of people want to do uh, they want to have whatever they do speed up. They want to have, um, they also want I gotta, I gotta, highlight on my cheek, my face here Um, they want to uh, have someone make decisions for them also, which is very dangerous. But, um, when it comes to Photoshop, and you do a selection, uh, and you want to knock somebody out and put them into something else or add something maybe, well, now that selection is basically an ai uh preset. That, all right, it's a behind the scenes that does the selection, all that and bridge or light room. Now you do a mask, it's. You know, there's a kind of ai setups in there, and so I just did a thing that you know, I learned kind of how to do a quick ai uh setup for landscapes or portrait or whatever, make the background dark or whatever, and I, I did this thing and, oh my gosh, did people? You know they thought I just, uh, sold my again, my soul, my soul to the devil. It's repeating the same thing I did back when I did composites. I have no interest in having the computer create an image for me, but I don't mind having a way of speeding up my process, whether it's cutting out or doing vignettes or whatever it is to help speed up my workflow.
Speaker 1:But I get a lot of grief from people that want to pipe in and say again, because I mentioned the word AI, you know I've jumped off the cliff, but we got to also think about. I've been through this for 45 years and I've seen so many changes and every time there's a new advancement in technology there's a group of people that say photography is dead. I heard it back in 1977, when I was my first year in college. I had an auto exposure camera and I walked in with that camera. I was a Canon AF. It was the first I think Canon's first auto exposure camera. And there were some guys that had some Leicas you know the old film Leica. Well, back then it was film, but I mean real manual cameras and they gave me all sorts of grief because I, you know, I got auto exposure. So you know why go to photography school. When you have a camera, it'll do it all for you. That's, that was 1977. And did auto exposure, uh, kill photography or make it really that easy? Not really. I shot. I've shot in manual my whole life. I never really used auto exposure anyways.
Speaker 1:But it's like people get nervous because there's this new change and they don't want the change. People are afraid of change and the other thing that people are afraid of is that someone's going to steal their workout from under them. I've got stories that you would not believe. Photographers call me and are in a panic because the digital files have a metadata that tell you f-stop shutter speed, iso, whatever, and they're afraid that they want to strip that from that data so that their clients won't see it, because someone could take that data and then now steal their work. I'm not kidding you. I'm not kidding you. That's how panicked people are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you mean now. Now, you mean with the AI being able to replicate that, or do you mean back then? No, no, this was like a few years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a few years ago, Because digital had the metadata and they were like oh no, I can't have it on there. Why I go, why, uh, and here I am giving. I have tutorials that tell you how to do every single thing I do, and I'm not worried about someone stealing.
Speaker 2:You know my client yeah, interesting. You know, being in the industry for so long you've. You've seen your and and being in the public square almost what with the right. You need to be present on youtube and social media for for as as long as it started and even before then the photography websites and you know the general digital space. You've been present on YouTube and social media for as long as it started and even before then the photography websites and the general digital space.
Speaker 2:I'm interested to hear how you got such a thick skin, because not only any photographer with an audience will get some level of criticism, but then a photographer who's a kind of a pioneer in some of these techniques, such as yourself, must get constant barrage of of hateful comments or, at least you know, critique and distaste from from people, is it? I know you've you've probably dealt with it. It's just part of your working life now. But how did you, how do you go about developing that thick skin for for people who are just kind of getting into that space and experiencing that for the first time?
Speaker 1:Well, back in the mid-80s, after I graduated from college and stuff, but I was finally getting my feet into setting up my own studio, my buddy and I went to Denver and set up a studio and my friend, steve, was a really good marketer. He had it all figured out. I was a terrible marketer, I didn't know anything about marketing and so he forced me to make cold calls and set up appointments to show my portfolio and he would stand over me while I made my cold calls and it was brutal, brutal. I was shaking, I was so nervous. I talk a lot about this on my marketing stuff, but that process of me having to exert myself in the marketplace and then receiving a rejection place and then receiving a rejection because I would make so, it would take me about.
Speaker 1:Let me think, if I did the math on this correct, I made 3000 cold calls my first year that I was in that studio and I got about 250 portfolio reviews or actual appointments. Sometimes I'd have three a day. I can stack them up. I'd just go portfolio in hand downtown just knocking on doors, going from agency to agency or whatever. I only got 10 jobs that whole year 10 really low-paying jobs If you do the math on that, that's a whole lot of rejection.
Speaker 1:When you talk about being the door slamming in your face on that level, it's mind boggling. Now my friend kept saying Joel, it's a numbers game, don't quit, don't give up. And I wanted to give up. It was brutal, I hated it and I had to learn that rejection was a daily experience, if not a multiple daily experience. And so after that it beat that out of me. So if you came up to me and said I think your work sucks, I go whatever Heard that before, and so I always say to people that you have to get to the point where you get rejected so many times, that doesn't take effect. If you're not there, you'll come undone.
Speaker 2:Every day, every day, something will send you in a tailspin and is this almost something that you teach, or you know? I know it's one of one of the videos I I watched of yours I can't even remember when, a while ago it was something like 10, 10 steps to become a professional photographer or something, and you know a few things there that that I was doing already, but the few new things that that stuck in mind, you know, like, don't follow trends, but you know, be patient, build your body of work. Body of work, it's, it's.
Speaker 1:Would that kind of fall into kind of those, those top 10 tips is just to go out and go out and get rejected, almost, however that might look these days okay so let's just say for some, somehow I got put in a position where I was the head of a photography uh, you know art center or something you know photography program and they said, joel, okay, what is it that you think these students need to get prepared for the real world? I would say they need to learn how to make cold calls. So cold calling 101 is a class they have to have. And maybe you do a summer internship where you're doing cold call all summer, because if you don't learn how to take and pick up the phone or whatever it is, because now we have emails and we don't want to talk to somebody but you have to exert yourself to the point where it's so nerve wracking that you're shaking I mean, if you're not that fearful, then you're not doing it right. If you're not in a position where that person you're speaking to and your tongue feels like 50 pounds and you're trying to get it out.
Speaker 1:I am Joel Grimes, I'm a photographer. I'd love to come work for you. If you can't get to that point where you can't exert yourself, you will never make it as a photographer. So you can learn all the techniques. You can be an incredible. I know I have buddies that I've uh rubbed elbows with for 40 years. They're better photographers than me by far and they never made a dime. They're always broke and they're always uh, you know, uh couldn't. They just couldn't make it because they never marketed like they should. And I'm so grateful for my friend forcing me to make cold calls and being in a position of being rejected on a daily basis, because it built me into who I am today and it's invaluable.
Speaker 1:So, yes, I think you have to. You have, you have to learn that skill set. So there's a lot of skill set that a photographer needs. We all know that. You wear a lot of hats, right. You get to be an accountant. You have to keep the books. You have to be a producer. You got to put things together. You got to call up, get all the props and whatever it is you know, until you can get to a point where you hire a producer. You become the producer, you become become the scout, you become all these things. Well, there's a lot of people.
Speaker 2:You have all those skills, but they never become a marketer, they never become a person that can pick up the phone and make a cold call let's bookend what we're talking about with, with ai and and back in the day versus now in terms of, I guess, monetizing, oneizing one's craft, and versus shrinking budgets and opportunities For today. For someone starting out today, a photographer who looks at the industry and thinks, well, I have to have a social media presence that's going to be a marketing tool. I have to have a good portfolio. I have to wear all those hats that you've just mentioned. I have to have a good portfolio. I have to wear all those hats that you've just mentioned. I have to cold call. I have to speak to loads of people. I have to have pitch decks. I have to be a good marketer. But then I see the industry and think, well, there's shrinking departments, shrinking budgets. Everyone wants video. Where do I fit and where do I start as a photographer today?
Speaker 1:thought as a photographer today. Well, there's always going to be a changing of the guard or how the market works, always. I've seen it my whole life. So I want you to think about this. In 1985, my buddy and I went to Denver and the commercial advertising photographer prior to the like, say the sixties and seventies into the eighties, was a huge studio five or six employees. They had a dip and dunk black and white machine. Somebody even had eight E6 processors on site. They had a huge production. That's how photographers, commercial photographers work. And in the eighties a new crop of photographers came in. We shared studios, we worked out of the back of our cars or whatever it is. We undercut all the big studios. We put them all out of business.
Speaker 1:Wow, because the way things are done changed and so and then you know, and then that you ride that wave for a while and then that whatever that worked is going to come doing it. Every single thing that you have success at has a short lifespan. You're going to have to go and readapt and rechange and rebuild what you do about every seven to 10 years, something like that. I mean the world changing even faster now. But the point is, is whatever success you have has a short life. That's why musicians generally have a peak. They sell a few million albums or whatever, and then they disappear because they don't change the way they approach the marketplace or their music all sounds the same, or they get too rich. And you know, drugs and alcohol, whatever, takeover, whatever it is.
Speaker 1:There's this real short wave. That happens and I've seen it and I've seen a lot of my friends. Just they couldn't keep up with the change and they ended up selling life insurance or something because and they were great photographers. So AI is going to come along and the world we live in is going to change. It's just a shuffling of the. You know, whatever the chairs it's going to be, it's just going to look different. So here's what happened in the 90s. You know the term stock photography. In the 90s it hit that full throttle and I had a lot of friends that jumped on the stock photography train and they made some good money at the beginning. And what happened was is that if someone doesn't know what that looked like back in the 90s, is you photograph transparency, slide film or you know media format transparencies and that would go into a library At the time it was filing cabinets, you know. And then someone would call up and say I need a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge sunset.
Speaker 1:And someone would go look, okay, we got 20 pictures to choose from. And they go, okay, that looks like a good one. And then that photographer would get a big cut. Back in the days it was like five grand, 10 grand, whatever a pretty good chunk of money for that one usage. Oh yeah, and so what happened was all these photographers started pouring images into the stock houses and pretty soon you make a call for a stock shot of the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset. Instead of being 20 pictures, there was, you know, 3,000 or 10,000 pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge, and so the odds of you, as a photographer, making a sale now would just diminish very quickly. And then so the prices started going down and a lot of things changed.
Speaker 1:But there's two major problems that happened in the 90s. The first was photographers started taking pictures of everything that they could think of. Oh, there's a tree click. There's a cow in the field click. There's a barn Click. There's a person riding a bike Click. They take a picture of everything because they were afraid that they would get a call. And someone said do you have a person riding a bicycle down New York main street of whatever Broadway? And you got to fill that slot and so photographers work degraded. They look terrible. My friend's work just went down the tubes because they watered it down. They never. It was like too many. They were juggling too many balls at one time and it just looked terrible. Anyways, that was the first problem that happened with monk photographers.
Speaker 1:There's another problem the editors at these stock houses. Okay, guess who they were? They were young kids out of college that were now the gatekeepers to what images they would keep to go in their files. So photographers would submit what they thought was a bunch of really good pictures and then they'd take 10 pictures and send back 200. And like, wait, these are really good images. So the person that was choosing they didn't know what was a good photo. So that kind of changed that. But here's the worst problem of all, and this is going to happen in AI. I guarantee you Clients would did this happen.
Speaker 1:I had a client call me and they said Joel, last year we used a stock photo for the cover of our annual report and our competitor used the exact same picture. Two annual reports, two different companies, the same exact photo. Now you can imagine the CEO of both those companies blew a gasket. They said don't ever use a stock photo, ever again Hire a photographer. So I got hired because they said we'll never take that risk again. So I never got into stock. I learned to photograph CEOs, real people, ad campaigns with we call them testimonial or advertorial type things with real people, and so there were no stock images of that kind of stuff. So I never missed a beat. In fact, I got my business as a commercial advertising photographer exploded in the 90s because people started moving away from stuff, so it actually helped me.
Speaker 1:So think about this. You're a client, let's say you're Nike, you're Phil Knight and you got a new shoe coming out and you send it over to agency. We got a million bucks to spend on this shoe campaign and they go, oh, we could save some money. We're going to go to agency. We got a million bucks to spend on this shoe campaign and they go, oh, we could save some money. We're going to go to AI. We're going to create an image in AI. Well, is it copyrightable? No, do you think Phil and I is going to sign up on that one? Nope, and then it looks kind of like it's almost it looks AI. It doesn't look, you know, it doesn't quite have it. It may one day it may not be able to tell the difference but ad agencies. So you got to think about this.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is where a lot of people don't understand that the real world of photography in the marketplace is when a client Coca-Cola, you name it, whatever I've shot for a lot of those clients they go to the agency and they say we got a million bucks, two million bucks, whatever it is, and they say we need a campaign. And so that agency starts chopping up the pie. As a general rule, photography is given 10% of that budget. So if it's a million dollars, you get a hundred grand for photography. Now that a hundred grand, you got to pay for a bunch of stuff. If it's 2 million, you get 200 grand and you got to chop it up. And so here's what a lot of. Because photographers come to me and go how would someone pay you that much money to do an ad campaign? I go because the agency that is hiring me is not attached to that money. You think they are. I mean, when I used to put bids in, I'll be like whoa, I better not go too high because you know, I don't know, it's a lot of money and our director's, like you, really underbid what's going on here. They're not attached to the money, they're not emotionally attached to the money and they have a budget. They have a budget. Let's say we got 200 grand, we got a thousand or whatever it is. Let's just get the photographer the best photographer we can afford. And so when it comes to AI, you say to your client you've given me a hundred thousand dollars to go do the photography, yet Do you think I'm going to go hit some key strokes and try to save money and do it for a hundred dollars? Well, maybe they might try to, but it won't take long before clients get savvy and they're going to go. We want a real artist, a real photographer, real people, real, the real deal. I'm telling you, I've seen it all.
Speaker 1:And also in the music industry. I played in the band. I know that it's hard to believe that. You know hair, but back when I had hair, I was in a band and we hit the. We hit the. In the early eighties. I was, you know, the new wave, you wave whatever. And we had our keyboardist. He had the latest, all the techno. We started recording and doing demos and stuff and we were using all this electronics. How long did that last? Not very long. People got sick of all that funky techno jumble. Right, eric Clapton came out with the unplugged album of the year just raw. Same thing with auto-tune People. You know they make their voice sound like amazing, but then they go to concert. You got to auto-tune in the concert, then the auto-tune stops working and the next thing, you know, everyone realizes they can't sing. I mean, we live in a real world. We are always trying to fake something or make a shortcut, I guess, which is understandable, but at some point a client is going to be more savvy than you think.
Speaker 1:It's the high-end client, it's not the low-end client, so I'm not worried about AI at all.
Speaker 2:Interesting. Yeah, I think, um, I think maybe those low end clients where you know if you're starting in the photography industry now you'd, you know you're going to, you can't, obviously can't. I mean, you can pitch for the high end clients, but you know the chances of getting that a little bit slimmer than maybe the lower end. Maybe it's the middle tiers that are going to get squeezed as much with the budgets, certainly when we're talking about ad campaigns and the commercial opportunities that might still or might not be out there. But I think, from what I hear you're saying, and which I totally agree with, that there's going to be very few replacements. These things will basically coexist with each other and people will have basically more options, or the agencies and these big brands will have more options even though they might have less of a budget.
Speaker 2:That doesn't mean to say that photographers will be squeezed in any significant way, um, and people want that.
Speaker 2:People want or will always want that human connection, right, and that, for me, will make photography more valuable, especially when you're thinking about portraits or you know, uh, photographs that involve people in in some way, and for you, you've been such a such a great proponent of of portraits, um, being such a such a great proponent of of portraits. Um, how is it that you go about? I mean, I don't want to ask about your process because we could. We could talk about that for hours, and if people want to see that, they just go into youtube or they go to your, your mastermind and your education platform on on your website. But, um, one of your mo's, I think, is making people feel larger than life when you're shooting them, certainly with portraits, right, and having those photo shoots with people. Tell us about how you go about doing that and if I'm accurate in saying that, for a start, but how you go about really getting the best out of people on set or with camera in hand.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's. You know, as an artist, I'm trying to do something that, for example we'll just give you a really simple example I take and strobe someone outdoors and with my setup, high speed, whatever combination I'm darkening the background and I'm bringing the subject forward right by my lighting. I'm bringing them off the background, which gives me, gives a little more drama, and they kind of like come at you, right? So a simple trick like that. I say trick, but a technique already plays. I started doing that in the mid 80s and my work, the art director started taking notes because nobody else was really doing it at that time, and so that became my sort of signature look but within that. So I have my technique and then I like someone straight into the lens, right, I like that straight, look, right. And so you look at a lot of my work. The eyes are in the camera, looking in the lens, right, I like that straight, look, right, you know. And so you look at all my work. You know, the eyes are in the in the camera, looking in the lens, and it's my, my approach, okay, and so it doesn't work for everything, but it's the way I approach a subject and I'm building drama, all those things. So it's a combination, I think, of the subjects. I look at the subject and I go, okay, what kind of person is this? Is it tough? Is it beauty? What do I want to do? What kind of techniques do I want to use to hopefully pull this off?
Speaker 1:A lot of times I will start a portrait with somebody and I go, oh, this is a good cross-light approach, rembrandt, cross-light, whatever I do. A couple snaps and I go, it just ain't working. I need something, you know. And so I'll quickly shift up and do something else, because I've done it so long, I can change very quickly and move a couple of lights. And then I got another look, and so I'm just working it, working it, and so it's a combination of you know, the person I'm dealing with. Maybe it's the location you know, maybe it's the end result that I'm trying to reach, because it's an ad, whatever it is. But it's like boom, boom, boom. It starts to happen. And then I'm like, oh, that's my look right there, and then I get my shot, and so it's very rare that I don't get there. Sometimes I fumble, I make mistakes, but sometimes it takes me a little longer, but I say, okay, just be patient. And then boom, I work very fast too. So, um, I'm making mistakes, but then I'm, I'm rectifying, I'm getting clear, I'm getting things worked out, and then it all comes together. And so, um, yeah, it's just, it's a process.
Speaker 1:I don't, I don't pre, I don't overthink my shot. People say, well, I'm going to photograph an athlete, I'm going to read up on that athlete. I don't really do that. That's not important to me. I may ask them some questions. Usually the art director has an idea of what they want and so I step into it. But, yeah, I don't, I don't pre-overthink it too much because I want to be more of a spontaneous watch. It happen in real time.
Speaker 2:And you know, using artificial lighting as well, which I'm a big proponent of. But using artificial lighting adds to that flexibility, right If you're short on time or you don't have the conditions, or you know that cohesiveness of the aesthetic really helps. But I know, you know, having got kind of feedback myself over the years that's another thing that people just hate or they don't think. You know, if you don't use natural lighting, then you don't really know how to light. You know, and it's well if you don't, lighting is lighting light. Um, you know, and it's well if you don't, lighting is lighting. It doesn't matter if it's natural, artificial, but I'm sure you get a lot of stick for that as well yeah, I mean, uh, the the.
Speaker 1:The problem is is that again, someone's defined what they've done by saying I'm a natural light photographer and so that makes them feel really good Like I'm a purist kind of person. And that is a trap, because I can take artificial light and make it look very natural. I can also take artificial light and build a lot of drama and it could be a real scenario, but a very rare scenario. It could exist and I've done this where I've taken my three light edgy light, you know which is very dramatic, and someone said, well, that doesn't exist in the real world. And I've gone into a skylight, two windows, set up a subject, no strobes fired it. It looks just like my lighting. That I've done, you know, in a studio and I go, this is all natural light. But so hard to find that scenario right. It's very rare that you find that perfect two windows behind you with the skylight over the top. So, yeah, the natural light thing, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I was going to tell you a little secret that I learned. It took me a while to learn this. There's a lot of things that took me a while to learn this. There's a lot of things that took me a long time to learn Some of the things. That took me, you know, 10 years and I think about it, I go why did it take me that long to learn that stupid little thing? Right Now? We live in a world where everything's shared, you know so generally, you just have a few strokes and you can find out a solution for something. But one of the things that I discovered early on, when I was knocking on doors, I learned how to knock on doors. I learned how to get myself into the ad agencies, get my work in front of them.
Speaker 1:But the problem that I had when I started and this will play into where I think to help people think about where to go and approach the marketplace and that is you look at a client and then you say I'm going to look at what they're doing, right, so you look at some ads, you look at their website. Now we look at website, you look at whatever and you go oh, I see what they're doing. Then you go and you create images. You maybe mock up, you grab somebody, you go, you build some images that look like that client's work that they're using, and then you go and you find out the ad agency. You go in and you show your work and you say, look, I got images just like what is being used for your client. And they go, oh, because every other photographer has done the same thing. So now, who are they going to pick? Somebody that's got hair or something? You know there's going to be some reason.
Speaker 1:But so I took a risk, I but so I took a risk. I learned something. I took a risk. I said I'm going to start building images that I like, that fit me. I'm not going to look at client work, it's going to fit images that I love. I started putting in my portfolio and all of a sudden, my work exploded. My rates went up. Everything exploded Overnight. I went from $1,500 a day rates to $10,000 a day rates because now I was a single photographer doing something that nobody else was doing, and art directors would look at it and go, oh, my gosh, this could be perfect for my client. They've never done anything like this. So think about AI. Ai is pooling. You type in give me a guy standing by a river fishing. Ai is pooling billions of images that have been shot in the past, but you're able to go and create images now in the future that AI has never seen.
Speaker 2:That's where the true artist is going to excel Fantastic. And one project I mean, you've got such an obviously diverse and huge body of work. One project that kind of stood out and I know stood out in terms of numerous awards and recognition and exhibited in the Smithsonian was your Navajo Portrait of a Nation book project. Tell us a little bit about the inception of that, where that came from, and then we'll talk a little bit about the responsibility of an impact of that project. But yeah, tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 1:Well, so it goes back to my first year as a college student under a professor by the name of Lubert Al. He said something first week in class. He said photography is not just a way to document the world around you, but it's also a way to be an artist and have an outlet to be a creative force. I'm sitting there at 19 years old going I want to be an artist, so that changed my life right there. I want to be an artist, so that changed my life right there. He also wrote on the board 100,000 chalkboard back when they used to have chalkboard. And he said that's how many students are graduating with a degree in photography every year. And he said only 10% of these students will end up working in their field. I looked around in the class and everyone else is going what? There's a 90% failure rate. And I went and looked around and said you mean, I'm going to be in the 10% and 90% of these students won't be around. That's what I thought. I mean, I wasn't that good of a photographer but I had confidence that if I worked hard I could be in that 10 percent. But then he wrote down only 10 of those will work on a national level and or whatever. And only 10 of those will do a coffee table picture book. So point, point, point, point, whatever. It is very small group. So in the back of my mind, I wanted to be a working photographer, I wanted to work on a national level and I wanted to do a coffee table book.
Speaker 1:So I'm in Washington DC, I got married and my wife had a job in DC. I moved from Denver to Washington and I started knocking on doors and the work just poured in and for the first time in my life I had money. I had six, seven days a week. I was working nonstop and after a while I got a couple of years, three years. I got kind of tired. I just thought you know what? I want to go back west, because I grew up in Arizona. I wanted to go back west and my wife and I we talk about it. I said I want to go back West and she goes well, what would you know? Where would you want to go? And I said I don't know, you know. I said but I really like to do a coffee table book.
Speaker 1:And so my wife and I was sharing a studio with a guy I won't say his name, but he said I said, oh, yeah, one day I want to do a coffee table book. And he said, oh, pipe drink. He said every photographer wants to do a coffee table book. Good luck with that. And I went home and I said to my wife what an idiot. He really pissed me off. So she says so.
Speaker 1:So the next morning I got up and we're getting, I'm getting ready for work and I'm still walking around going. So my wife said to me well, if you did a coffee killer book, what would you? What would be your subject? And I said, ah, something in the West, probably cowboys. And she said well, hasn't that been done? I go, yeah, kind of. And she goes what else do you think? I go Indian.
Speaker 1:And she goes well, what tribe would you work on? I'm not joking, this is, I'm telling you in real time. This is not work. She goes what tribe would you work? I go, oh, the Hopi. Because growing up in Arizona I knew the Hopi Indians, a very small group but up on the mesas. I really liked that. I used to drive all through there when I was doing my landscape work and studying photography. She goes well, isn't the Navajo a bigger tribe? I go yeah, they are bigger. She goes why don't you do it on a bigger tribe? That way you probably sell more books, something like that. I said yeah, okay, I can do it on the Navajo.
Speaker 1:She goes well, how would you approach how would you do that? I go well, I need a publisher. And she goes well, how would you do that? I go, well, I photographed the publisher, john Fielder, at Westcliff Publishing in Denver for an article for I think it was some Denver magazine and she said well, how would you approach him? I said I don't know. I just tell him I'm doing a project.
Speaker 1:She goes why don't you call him? I reached down, picked up the phone. This is a for sale phone. This is all in this morning, all in about a 15 minute talk. I dialed 411. That was information I got Westcliff Publishing.
Speaker 1:I called up the front desk. I said this is Joel Grimes. I want to talk to John Fielder. She says does he know what this is regarding? I said yes, it's a book project I'm working on. So she puts me through. And John said Joel, I remember you. How are you doing? I said great, what are you doing?
Speaker 1:I said, well, I'm in DC right now, but I'm getting ready to do a book on the Native American tribe, the Navajo. It's going to be the greatest Native American book ever published. Would you like to be a part of it? And he said when can you start? That's how I got that book. Well, it took me two years to do that book. It was the hardest thing I ever did. But the other thing that I had started doing at that time was taking strobes out in the field, battery-packed strobes, the Lumindine no, it was before Lumen Dine, it was the old Norman 400Bs. I put two of them in one softbox and I was doing a lot of ad campaigns with that, and so I thought I could take that out in the field and do portraits of the Navajo. And so it all came together. We packed up, went out. It was kind of a stupid we. Basically I left my commercial work behind and I just dived in and it wasn't long before we went broke.
Speaker 1:Uh yeah it's just the reality, but but anyway, that's how that book came out of there and, uh, it was a labor of love. I never made my money back the investment I put into it.
Speaker 2:That's how book projects are made my money back, the investment I put into it. That's how book projects are interesting. And and now kind of you, have you done any books since then? I mean, it's been a while, but is that something that you, you want to do more of?
Speaker 1:I got approached over the years to do other books and the thing is, is that? Um, it's it. You got to think about how much energy. Okay, I want to put it into perspective. Let's say I did a coffee table book and it was successful. Let's say it made $100,000. Most books don't do that. You can make 30 grand on a back book. That'd be great. But let's just say it was $100,000. It was a cat's meow coffee table book. Well, here I'm shooting ad campaigns and I can do that in one week. Why would it take two years to do a book to make the same amount of money? It just didn't make any sense to me. Now, as I get older, I start thinking well, you know, I've made enough money to live on to retire, so maybe now's the time to do a book, but I'm not going to do a book to make money.
Speaker 2:You just can't do it. Yeah, it's more of a marketing campaign and networking tool than it is. You know the people that are involved with the publishing, so, but with your platform you must think that you'd be able to sell a decent amount. You have a huge audience around the world. You don't feel confident that that would be able to sell successfully, whatever it might be.
Speaker 1:Well, if you do the math, here's the problem. If you do the math and you go through a publisher, you pretty much will never make any money. If you self-publish, there's a possibility you can make a profit on it. But going through a publisher system, it just there's no way. Now you could make money on prints. That might be one way you make your money, but on the actual book sales you do the math, it doesn't work.
Speaker 2:But did that book, when you did it, did that alter your trajectory as a photographer even more? I know, financially it maybe didn't work out, but in terms of a PR tool did it kind of catapult you even further into the photography world?
Speaker 1:Well, I put things back in perspective, back in 1990 when that book came out 91, I got newspaper articles, magazine articles, all sorts of things. You add up your viewer audience and I can, a week in Instagram or Facebook, blow those numbers out of the water. So it's like, you know, back in the day, yeah, I mean I got a lot of exposure, but it wasn't you know. But here's what I what, here's what came out of that whole book. I tell people this I'm in a Volkswagen van living out of a pop-up. You know, for two years, 400 nights. It was rough. I mean, you know it was rough, um, but here's what I did. I came up with an idea. But here's what I did. I came up with an idea. I executed it, even when I should have quit, and I didn't quit. Something right.
Speaker 1:What I learned was the perseverance of sticking with the project. And it was very difficult to stick with it, especially when you're you're. You know your kids are starving at home and you know you're gone from your wife. No cell phones. Back then I'd go to pay phone. I had a little AT&T card, you know. I'd call my wife once a week or whatever. How's the kids doing? They're screaming in the background when are you coming home? I go okay, I'm out here, I'm eating dirt and I'll be home soon, but I learned how to stick with something, and it taught me a lot about the ability to come up with something and then see it through.
Speaker 2:Discipline, perseverance, all right, well, we spent enough time in the past, let's fast forward to the present. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm very interested to hear about you know, your education. We obviously see you on YouTube, but there's a lot that you know. There's only so much you can kind of teach on YouTube, right, and I know you have your, your education platforms. Um, tell me a little bit about how teaching, because you've been a big, you know doing, speaking around the world, loads of events and workshops and education and courses, and you know, even I've bought some of your courses and you know you've just so present in the education space. This is clearly something that you find very fulfilling. Um you clearly something you find enjoyable. How is it shaped? Or or um change, I guess, shaped your evolution as an artist in in the teaching kind of arena?
Speaker 1:well, uh, drastically. Because, um, they did a, they did a study once where they looked at education and they looked at what was the best model of education for someone, and they realized that the one-room schoolhouse that they used to have back on the prairies and whatever, was by far the best education someone could ever get. Because what happened was every time someone would learn something and so they would now be in a position to teach that what they learned to someone below them. That's what a one-room schoolhouse did, and so having to learn something and then teach it makes you a lot better at it. But because you have to re-explain it to somebody, and especially if someone says I got a question, I don't understand this, and you go through and you explain it, and as an educator, in the last 15 plus years I've had to explain everything I do, and by doing that I okay. I want you to think about something.
Speaker 1:I went to a fine arts school. I got a degree in fine arts, which was by the, but when I got that I didn't think it was a fine arts degree. I wanted to go to you know, art center in Pasadena or Brooks Art Institute in Santa Barbara or some big photography school, couldn't afford it, so I went and I got a fine arts degree. School Couldn't afford it, so I went and I got a fine art degree. No strobe, no lighting, no studio, no, nothing about commercial advertising, nothing it was. You know, take a picture of your shadow and express yourself. Maybe not quite that bad, but I'm saying it was. What I learned a lot was art history, which was really helpful in the future. But, um, so I had no strobe experience and then I had to. I assisted a few photographers just for a little bit of time. And then I got my strobes. I borrowed them, actually, from my student mate and I had to grab a subject and I had to learn how to start lighting subjects. Back in the day we used Polaroid, a medium format camera, a large format. I'd take Polaroid, look at it and go, oh, I'm not doing it right. So I learned lighting, learned lighting, but I pretty much stuck with lighting cross light, rembrandt light for 25 years, all my campaign stuff, almost always with one light, and on occasion I'd use a little key light or something, a little edge light, but I had my system down, whatever.
Speaker 1:Now I'm 50 years old and I'm like I had a pretty good run. But I kind of want to do more. I want to learn more. I got I want to learn more about lighting. I don't really know what I'm, I don't know what the heck I'm doing. So I I started ordering all these different lights and edge lights and you know stuff, and I started experimenting.
Speaker 1:That's how that that sports stuff came out during that that testing period and I started I go okay, all right, what does this do? I think it's beauty, dish, back it up, move it in, back it up, and, and. All of a sudden I started learning things, and, and, and it just started to make sense. But then people started asking me questions. They go how do you do that? And I go well, and I draw a diagram for them or whatever. Nobody's paying me, I'm just giving my stuff away, always giving my stuff away.
Speaker 1:And I started all of a sudden getting better at lighting and all of a sudden I started teaching it and it just exploded onto this level where I started doing things that people go. Where in the world did you learn that? I go, it really comes out of me teaching because someone asks a question and then I go okay, let me see what's going on. I'll try to solve that. And so the teaching has actually made me 10 times the photographer I think I would have ever been if I had taught. So yeah, I hadn't taught. So yeah, I was making money. I was, you know, with my camera, but I think it's the teaching that really has allowed me to grow, and I love teaching. So in 12, 13 years I have logged in over 500 events, workshops, events, you know, photoshop, world around the world. 500 events not just one day, not just one hour on front of the stage. Some of these are a week long.
Speaker 1:I put my, I paid my dues on the teaching front and I loved it. I still love teaching but I've cut back drastically on everything and even before COVID I was, I told my wife I think I've done it. I've had my run and I love teaching now but being on the road like that, I was gone 200 days a year just teaching, and then I was still doing client work. One year I was gone 300 days. I was only home two weekends in the whole year. So I've cut back on that Um and uh, but I owe a lot to the teaching side of things because I've had to um and in a way, teaching, I become my own client. Right I go, I'm going to go shoot some cowboys. If I'm not, I'm, I'm my own client. Then I'll learn how to do it and teach people how to do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, that's the beauty of photography. It's often easy for us to, well, easy, accessible for us to go and learn a new skill by ourself just through experimentation, right, Trial and error. But now there's, everyone has YouTube, and then they, as long as they go and practice, they might be able to to to get that skill, um, sorted. But so what is next for you of over 40 plus years in the industry? Is it to chill at home and just do some personal work, or what's next for you?
Speaker 1:That's why I'm in an RV. I want to just get out and experience life and do stuff and put no pressure on me, just do fun stuff. And I love taking pictures. I'll do it till the day I die. I don't have an interest in client work. I still have a few clients, but I don't really care about client work anymore. Have a few clients, but I don't really care about client work anymore.
Speaker 1:Um, I I've done that for 40 plus, if not 45 years and I love doing client work and I have loved doing client work. But I'm at a point now where I just want to do my own thing. I mean, I'm 67 years, I'll be 68 here in October and, um, you know, it's like it's an experience. I want it to be an experience Whatever I'm doing, I want it to be experience. If, if someone says, hey, um, you want to go do this, and it's something I've never done before, I'm like, oh, that's kind of interesting that you say, hey, joe, can you? I'm like, no, I've done that, I just can't, I can't, I can't do anymore. So the other thing that's a hard people don't understand this, but one of the hardest things that I have to do as a portrait photographer without having clients that come in and say, oh, you got to photograph this athlete or whatever.
Speaker 1:When I go to do my own personal work, I have to recruit people, cowboys, or whatever it is. I spend more time setting up and recruiting people than it takes to easily take. I mean, it's like 20 times the amount of time that it takes to do the picture. And so I'm kind of getting tired of the recruiting nonstop phone calls. I'll call a cowboy like 15, 20 times before they, you know, finally say okay, you know, it's like I have to twist everyone's arm and it's like you say, well, yeah, you're, you're Joel Grimes, you're. All these beautiful portraits Doesn't matter, everyone has an iPhone. Now they don't. When I, when I tell a cowboy I'm, I'm going to do this killer picture, they're like what I don't know. And so I'm getting kind of tired of the recruiting. Uh, if I had, uh, you know, if I won the lottery, I would just hire a full-time you know person to recruit for me. But I don't know if I can do that yeah, um.
Speaker 2:So in that sense, how you know, going back to the beginning of our conversation, where we're kind of talking about tips for people to get into photography now and, uh, you know that's's such a wide question, but someone who wanted to essentially follow in your footsteps and their young 20s, mid-20-year-old, budding Joel Grimes, photographer mentee, what would be the one kind of key principle or concept or piece of advice that you would give them today, in 2025?
Speaker 1:well, my personality is I'm very, uh, energetic, go out, you know, make things happen kind of personality. But I've had to force myself to go out and create, create, create, repeat, repeat, make mistakes, build a body, work. I never sit still, and so to me that there's always a handful of people at the very top whatever they are car photographers in LA or whatever it is there's a handful that always make it, and those people are the ones that work nonstop. So it really comes down to how many hours do you want to put into your journey. The more hours you put in, the greater your end result will be.
Speaker 1:I have friends that I say when's the last time you did a test shoot? And I go three years ago. I'm like, I do one every weekend, one a week, one a week. I do one every weekend, one a week, one a week. If I'm not doing one a week, I'm not growing, and so I call it the 50 self-assignments. I try to do one a week, sometimes even more. So it really comes down to how many hours are you going to put into your craft. That's it.
Speaker 2:That's it, simple as that.
Speaker 1:Old school mentality work hard, play hard and you'll make it. Perseverance, love it. And on that note, joe, I'll let to have to get outside and catch some air, but I love. I love talking about photography and being an artist. I love talking about the possibility that you can go and make a living with your camera. These are all things that I've done, and I wasn't the most talented person on the planet, but I, I, I. Again that perseverance. I think, again that perseverance. I think that that rat like cunning ability to just keep at it, learn to receive rejection and criticism, because you can't just receive praise. You'll end up like Michael Jackson and you know you'll be a freak show because you need someone to say you, you didn't do it right. And if someone you trust, if someone on social media says you suck, forget that one. But if someone you trust says I think you should explore something a little bit different, take their word for it and go out and do that. But then, uh, you know, um, but receive the criticism and you'll be better for it.
Speaker 2:Go and seek it out, yeah, like seek out mistakes in practice. So, when you're practicing and working hard and doing your test shots, go and seek out failure. It's the only way you learn. And then go and seek out criticism. Basically the same thing. And you. This is the only way you grow, it's the only way you you progress, it's the only way you learn. So, um, absolutely, yeah, totally agree, joel, go and enjoy your sunset. Um, thank you so much for joining me. It's been a, it's been an absolute honor.
Speaker 1:Um, thank you, I really appreciate it and, uh, hopefully we got a few people that maybe will be encouraged by this, and I think so. I think people are hungry for encouragement. I think we all need a little bit of a life coach, and that's what I think you are doing this for. I kind of do it because I do want to see people get excited about growing and living their dreams.
Speaker 2:So thank you for letting me be a part of it. Absolutely, joe. Thanks so much. Take care, okay, why teaching has become a central piece of his work. Oh, that was going so well.
