The MOOD Podcast

The Best Bits of 2025

• Matt Jacob

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The year didn’t teach us to shoot faster. It taught us to go deeper. We close out 2025 by stitching together the most resonant moments from a season of hard questions and honest answers: why “quick fix” education fails creatives, how pricing for profit transforms freelancers into owners, and where empathy turns a portrait from performance into truth.

Art stays at the centre. We explore ambiguity as a strength, and you’ll hear how long-form projects and photo books benefit from time and distance, how technique and tone evolve across a decade, and why music, language, and psychological safety can unlock authentic portraits. We examine the record-making power of photojournalism and face its mental health tolls with tools that actually help: self-care rituals, supportive networks, and realistic recovery in hostile environments.

Threaded through everything is a humbling sense of place—grief and hope living side by side, and nature reminding us the story isn’t finished. If you’ve felt the pull to slow down, to price honestly, to build community, and to let your work breathe, please take stock and listen.

Subscribe, share with a friend who needs depth over dopamine, and leave a review telling us where you’ll choose craft over shortcuts in the new year.
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Matt Jacob :

Welcome to another episode of the Mood Podcast. And this is a special end-of-year episode that we thought would bring together some of the most meaningful moments from conversations throughout this year, 2025. So you'll hear from guests such as Brian Scootermat, Chris Dove, Phil Sharp, Marshall Toe, Lauren Walsh, and others. Each clip reflects a different facet of photography and the creative journey from doubt and discipline to ethics, longevity, and learning how to stay human in the work. I want to genuinely thank everyone who has watched, listened, shared, or written in and sat with these conversations over this year. The support means so, so much to me and the team. And I hope this episode serves as a moment to reflect, reset, and carry something useful into what comes next. Of course, wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a happy, grounded, mindful start to the new year. I'll see you in it, and of course, happy shooting. Enjoy.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh wow. Um gosh, Matt, that's a great question, but I have to forewarn you. I don't have a lot of filters. I'm a 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. We want it easier. We want it faster. Um that is, I think, the 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 by nothing's binary. The only binary answers in photography are physics, right? We can't debate the physics. But when we talk about creativity, there's no binary, so there's no simple answer. Every every question and every answer's got many, many, many variables that could impact the outcome. So I also find that part of that lazy is that 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.

Matt Jacob :

Is that the is that the the I guess the product of our environment these days and society in the in a world of abundance where we can literally get anything we want, especially in the Western world, in you know, in a developed country, we can have whatever we want, basically, right? We we can order food, we can order an Uber, we can just turn on Netflix, we we don't actually have to leave our sofa, we can play video games to our heart's content. We we're used to that world now. Is that is that 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 get I'm guessing there's probably a crossover a lot there.

SPEAKER_05:

Yes. So that's the easy answer. Uh-huh. So uh I 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 I think that these these amazing tools and resources we have also kind of conflict with our desire to just take the shortest path, you know, 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. I mean, you're a photographer, you go to these incredible locations and and you, you know, are photographing these incredible portraits of people. 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, like 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. Um but I think sometimes what it also does is it kind of creates a false sense of ability. Uh 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? Uh, with a much simpler camera working with film where you pressed 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, when it comes to the educators, the only thing I'll say about that, because I don't 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. I always joke that thank goodness she's not a clinical psychologist, or I'd be a straitjacket by now for sure. But um 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 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 I'm proud of that. I'm happy with that because I still get to do my photography.

SPEAKER_00:

I like photography.

SPEAKER_02:

I love business. Uh someone said it to me recently like, what is the purpose of your your business? And realizing that I am an entrepreneur, I'm someone who runs a business first, and photography happens to be the way that I do it, or I serve people first, but photography is just the medium in which I serve people. And I've always run my business that way because I was taught really from very young age that, like, you know, life is not all about happiness. It's about, you know, the effect that we have on the people around us. And like when you meet people, how can how can you serve them? How can you make their lives better? And I do that through photography and more recently, really through my mastermind and helping people run their photography businesses better so that they can have more financial freedom, more free time, or just buy the new camera that they want.

Matt Jacob :

It's like a balance, would you say, between obviously putting food on the table for your family, but also finding meaning in what you do? I mean, happiness is kind of like this thing we throw around, almost just this label we've made up, right? In humanity. But having something to wake up for in the morning, you know, and find meaning from that. And that goes through just serving others, right? Is that something you've found a bit more of a priority for um moving forward?

SPEAKER_02:

I think it is. It's life priority, really, because it's very easy. I'm a goal-driven person, and it's very easy for me to just see a goal and see the path towards it, and then just put my head down tunnel vision and go. But when I do that, you ignore everything else around you, and then your life starts suffering. And it's it's that pendulum everybody has, right? Oh, my business is doing well. Well, my personal life must be like total flames and chaos. Uh, or if my personal life is doing really well, then I don't know, I'm getting sued by someone. I've never had that happen, but I can see it.

Matt Jacob :

Well, but you know, you had a court case, didn't you?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, but that's because I sued someone else. Oh, you sued someone else.

Matt Jacob :

Okay. No more suits since we last spoke.

SPEAKER_02:

No more suits since we last spoke. No, thank God. I and I think that is because anything that comes, you know, I'm not perfect. I I would love to say that I've made every client 100% happy, but that's just unrealistic. But any client that's not happy, I'm gonna bend over backwards to make it up to them, you know, because I I truly care. Like I I care how they feel about our experience together. I how I care about how I've left, you know, them versus how I found them.

Matt Jacob :

Is have you ever had a line though where a client has maybe asked too much or has taken advantage of your kindness? Because you can say that you can be, you know, the customer's always right, but I'd argue the customer's not always right. You know, there's a point where you have to say no. Like just you're asking too much now or you're taking the piss, or my time is worth way more than what I'm actually giving you at the moment.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, yeah. Oh, 100%. I mean, and I'm very, I hope I'm very good at trying lines. I mean, you're setting boundaries. It's difficult. It is difficult, but I'm usually pretty good at kind of realigning people. So, you know, I will do whatever it is I'm doing to maybe make up for it or even just to serve them in general. But then if they start crossing, like I'll let it go, but then I'll also realign them with like, hey, we're trying to do this. Like, is what we're doing right now still serving that purpose, right? Have we already made up for whatever small little error that I've made that now you're no going crazy over still? It's always the clients with the crazy eyes, though. I have to say, it's yeah. Yeah, obviously.

Matt Jacob :

And there's many of them around. Yeah. I mean, I I've I've been that person.

SPEAKER_02:

Crazy eyes? You don't have crazy eyes.

Matt Jacob :

No, I think um, well, sometimes it, well, you'd have to ask my wife, but yeah. I think a lot of it comes down to managing expectations, especially in the service industry. And people forget that about photographers. You're you're serving someone, whether it's a brand or an individual customer, right? Or a wedding client, whoever it might be, you're providing a service to someone else. And so it's there's always kind of like this subservient nature of, well, I'll do whatever you need me to do. But if those expectations aren't allied at the aligned at the beginning, right, you'll get scope creep and people try to push a little bit more. Oh, I didn't know that that wasn't part of it, and they try and play that game, right?

SPEAKER_07:

Yes.

Matt Jacob :

So I think that's comes comes of just being a good business person, right? In terms of being strong in those expectations.

SPEAKER_02:

Figuring it out, making the rules and figuring out when to bend them with.

Matt Jacob :

Yeah. Tell us about the mastermind then. This is a new thing, I think, since we last spoke.

SPEAKER_02:

It is. Yes. When we last spoke, it was not even a thought. I just started it in the beginning of the year in January. Well, I guess more towards February, but it's all business, 100% business.

Matt Jacob :

And like I give it to give us a bit of context because you have photo insiders, which is kind of your education. Photography. Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, photo insiders, which is photography education, monthly content, community. But this is all business. And like I mentioned before, I've always loved business, but I had a really hard time teaching it because it never brings in the numbers. When I when I post on YouTube and about business, it's like crickets, right? Really? But if I post about, I don't know, your autofocus settings and the latest Canon camera, I'm gonna get a bazillion views on his on something like that.

Matt Jacob :

So it will because you know a lot of hobbyists, I guess.

SPEAKER_02:

Hobbyists, but also people are trying to figure out how to use the camera. And I mean, just photography in general. I mean, what photographer picked up a camera? Like, I can't wait to do marketing. Yeah, I can't wait to figure out my accounting and tax strategy, right? You you just don't do that. So you're not gonna spend your time watching all these business videos when that's not technically what you're passionate about. But that's also why there's such a lack of business education in the photography industry. Well, I can't say that. There's a lot of business education in the photography industry, but it's not as robust.

Matt Jacob :

Well, there is a lack of there is a lack of it. Well, and certainly in my perception of the photography industry, there's so much in terms of you know, your your technical types of photographers and YouTube videos. And that's probably why, because they know it does well. It does well. But the but the I and the reason why I sound surprised at this, and sorry to interrupt you what you you're saying, but in my experience and having so many people reach out to me and ask, how do I make this a business? How do I make this full-time? I want to transition. And I guess because a lot of people start out just on the hobby side of it, like, oh, I, you know, I want to just want to try photography, and then they love it, and then they get good at it, and then they think, oh, maybe I can actually, yeah, maybe I can actually do something with this. But there's this huge dearth of people of of knowledge in how to transition from I can take photos to I can run a business taking photos.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, and it's funny because it the most questions I get asked are about business, not about the camera.

Matt Jacob :

Maybe it's just YouTube.

SPEAKER_02:

It's it might be just YouTube. Well, Instagram's the same. Instagram's the same. And then when I speak at uh conventions and stuff too.

Bryan Schutmaat:

I found myself really yearning for um community connection, like you know, just talking about work and um what it means to to us. And um, I've been trying to cultivate that more and more uh as you saw with the workshops.

Matt Jacob :

Yeah, I think um the workshops were were really interesting to kind of see behind the curtain with uh with you I guess explain explaining is the wrong word, but at least kind of um elaborating on on your wonderful photographs without and we'll we'll we'll talk about this as well, it's interesting, but without giving too much to the to the viewer or to the audience, and to still allow this kind of like um poetic interpretation of of what we we think is going on or how we make sense of of the work. Is this kind of a deliberate ploy, I guess, that you think is really important in in photography or at least the kind of the fine art or post-documentary photography world in giving leaving a little bit to to the interpretation of of the viewer? I think so.

Bryan Schutmaat:

I think um photography is uh all the things that leaves unsaid can be really powerful. So I I absolutely love the uh space for ambiguity, subjectivity, um the imagination that viewers bring to it, I think is really important. And if you have something too buttoned up or that is explained too well, I think that you kind of rob the reader of that, the viewer of that.

Matt Jacob :

That being said, there's there's a definite intent behind. I mean, we're we we'll talk about, I mean, you've got plenty of books out there, of which I have some here with me now. The proud owner of some black market copy. No, I'm not. It's like I bought um we you know, look at all of your work actually, but uh um especially your latest work, Sons of the Living, um, there is some intent behind narrative suggestions, should we say, and kind of like the deeper complexities of of those layers and the story, the story that you're trying to exhibit in in this work. So, I mean, there's how do you kind of balance that tension between what you want to say to the world, but also leaving that ambiguity that you think is important for the viewer?

Bryan Schutmaat:

Oh, I think that limitation is a little bit inherent in the medium. Um, we talk about narrative and photography, but um you can't really be storytellers in the way that um a journalist can be a storyteller or even a filmmaker or um someone writing a novel or any of the above. Like we can have in in large part narrative suggestion, narrative hints, but we can't be um storytellers in in any kind of complete sense uh unless we just caption everything and put it together like it's a some kind of like very um um extensive magazine article. I think uh there's gonna be all of these gaps that the viewer is gonna fill in. And sometimes that can be really um fruitful in terms of uh, again, like poetic interpretation, the imagination that people bring to it. There's like a lot of um, there's a lot of meaning between pictures, I think. I think that it's not just about, you know, everything that's in the image, but the atmosphere that's created that almost extends beyond um one picture to the next. There's like a world that's created that people can exist in when they're looking at a good photo book, I would say.

Matt Jacob :

And that world that you depict it often is the American West. What is it about? I mean, obviously you're American and you're from Texas. I think you're born in Houston. If you if Houston or Austin. Yeah.

Bryan Schutmaat:

I'm from I live in Austin. Um, and I was born in Houston. And Texas is an interesting state because it's um such a big state that it's kind of part of the American South and it's kind of part of the American West. I would say Texas is where big is where the South becomes the West. Um, so I was always drawn that way because of the grandeur of the landscape. Uh coming from Houston, I was in search of those kind of places because Houston, um, you know, even though you think of you know cowboys and country music and uh the rodeo and all that, um it's it's a it's an urban kind of place and then a very sprawling suburban environment around it. Um so growing up, I I really, you know, was seeing a lot of parking lots and billboards and strip malls and things like that. And uh by the time I was old enough to get in a car and drive myself, I was always like hitting the road and uh trying to to find more open places.

Matt Jacob :

And how did photography start? I mean, you went to art school, how did the whole kind of photography thing come about? And what was the point where you was there a seminal moment where you went, oh yeah, this is, I mean, this is me?

Bryan Schutmaat:

Yeah, I know there wasn't like one of those epiphany kind of moments for me. I was always interested in cinema, so I loved cinematography and um how things were depicted in movies. Um, and I took a still photography course in college, and it was a slow growth. It wasn't like a like an epiphany kind of moment or any kind of uh light bulb that went off. It was it was an interest that grew. Um, and then it it turned into a passion over time that um was happening. That I could never let go of.

Matt Jacob :

And Sons of the Living was overtime, right? I mean, uh we can talk about my other favorite book, Graze of the Mountain Sens, but the the time span that you spend on these projects, first of all, is it like a deliberate book in mind? It's like, oh, I'm gonna go and I wanna, you know, create this and it to be a book at the end, or at least a project, or is it kind of just see how it goes, follow your curiosity, and then tell me about the time span of of each of these projects, because I think people will be surprised.

Bryan Schutmaat:

Well, I'll start with Grays the Mountain Sands, because it came out first. That I shot over the course of a year and a half. Uh, I was in graduate school at the time, and um, I had a deadline, I had to get my thesis done and all that. So I I did that pretty quickly, I'd say. Um, and then uh got it out there. And then I didn't mean for Sons of Living to take as long as it did. I was hoping probably when I started I would be done within a couple years. But um yeah, just I kept going at it and going at it. And I didn't shoot all that much. Uh I it's not like I was shooting for 10 years straight. It was like a couple weeks per year. And I think that benefited the work a lot because uh I think the distance between uh the the time that you take a picture and the time that you consider it for the book uh is a real benefit. I think stepping away from the emotional memory of taking the picture, meeting the picture on its own terms, um, without like that, that um that connection to it is is pretty important. And then just like living life and growing as a human being as you're making this big project is has I thought was very um very beneficial as well.

Matt Jacob :

Yeah, so I mean Sons of the Living was what over nine, 10 years. You must have changed, obviously changed as a person, changed as an artist. Did did you see much of that technique or that evolution in the work that we obviously don't notice, but was it evident?

Bryan Schutmaat:

Yeah, for sure. I mean, if you want to talk about technique and technical stuff, I mean the prints and how I was kind of processing uh images and uh printing at the beginning versus the end changed a lot. There was like a different way I handled tones um that I thought got a lot better just because that's what we do. We we live life and hopefully get better at things. So just like the uh the visual nature and the kind of you know aesthetic of everything changed over time. And then um, and then also, yeah, just as a person who's moving through the world and the kind of things that we take notice of or the things we care about, I would say would I change from when did I start that? 2014, I would have been 30 years old. And then um, yeah, finished in 2023, just as I was about to turn 40. So, you know, it was like all of my 30s. I hope we change as people during that that decade. I had a good 30s, but um anyway, yeah, I feel like there was a different kind of curiosity I had by the end, or maybe little different things I want to say about the world, perhaps.

SPEAKER_04:

The first thing is a lot of people think they're entrepreneurs or solopreneurs when they're actually just freelancers and they haven't figured out how to run a business. And the telltale sign is when I ask people how much money you're making, they'll tell me a number. And I say, well, if we had to pay somebody to do your work for you, how much money would be left over? So that you you actually don't touch anything. You're not allowed to touch anything, you're allowed just to manage. And when we put it that way, then most of them are negative revenue or negative profit, I should say. They don't understand that what they're really doing is not building a business, but just charging some kind of project day rate in which there are no in guarantees for future work. There's no guaranteed income, there's nothing like that. That and that's a surprisingly common mistake that a lot of quote-unquote entrepreneurs are making or solopreneurs. They haven't even entered into entrepreneurship. Where do we start?

Matt Jacob :

You know, if we're thinking my biggest concern for many, let's I bring it back to myself, but I'm a great example of many out there as a as probably one of those types of people, and very, very concerned about pushing too much to because I'm worried that it's gonna de-de um desensitize or I'm gonna lose that passion for what I want to do. And so there's this there's this kind of no man's land between, you know, getting a little bit of income and being kind of that freelance persona and then scaling into something that is scalable and sustainable, but without losing, you know, really why we do this in the first place. Where do we even where do we even start with this?

SPEAKER_04:

All right. Let's clarify then. I think what I understand you saying is if I just hire people to do the work, then what am I doing? Am I just a a corporate uh paper pusher? Is that what I do? I'm a telephone artist where I just telephone people and tell them what to do. Okay, so let's just assume then that you want to do the work yourself. And that's there's nothing wrong with that. But if you were to to uh bid the projects as if someone else were working on it and leave room left over for profit, then you ventured into at least entrepreneurship. So let's just say to hire a comparable photographer to do what you do, to put them on salary, it would cost about 120K. Let's just say that for round numbers, okay? It could be more or less. It doesn't really matter. Just use this number as an illustration. And then there's probably a project manager of some sort. Some of us have reps, they do that for us, but you need some kind of project manager to do the bidding, to do the contracts, to book different people. So that person has to be counted for. Let's say this person is 65K on an annual basis. We need to look at everything on an annual basis because every time I ask people how much it costs, they start quoting me hourly or day rates. That's how I know they're not thinking of it as an entrepreneurship thing. Okay. Now, if you had to pay these people this amount of money in most places to cover their taxes and insurance and some liability stuff, you'd probably have to add another 20% on top of that. Okay. So that is just your base labor cost. We're not accounting for overhead, for software, for uh purchasing of equipment, things like that. When you start adding all that stuff up, it starts to look like a really big number. And then when you have all that number totaled up, that's just your break-even number. You need to add in profit to that. So you're going to add in 20 to 25%. Cool. Now you have understanding how to build a business. Here's the cool part. You can still choose to do the work. And here's the best part, which is you just choose to do the projects that you feel most passionate about. You maybe you don't want to do retouching. Maybe you don't want to scout locations, maybe you don't want to do test shoots. That's what an assistant photographer or an assistant is able to do for you. Or, you know, it's the 10th dog food commercial or photo shoot, and you don't really want to do it anymore. You've done the nine, you don't need to do the 10th one. The tone, the style, all that's been set up. And you want to get yourself to that point in which you're doing the high-level creative stuff. Now, I've been fortunate to work on campaigns. And I remember one time when we flew to China, we were working with one of the biggest fashion photographers in China. And she had three sets going on at the same time all the time. Three simultaneous projects going on. And you know what she did? She walked in after somebody had done all the lighting setup. She made some notes, they fixed it, and she came in, they handed her the camera, she pushed a button a couple of times, and then she walked on to the next set. And the whole machine has been built around this. So you could say, like, what is the most essential thing that you have to do and that gives you joy that no one else can do? Everything else you can delegate to someone else. So I'm not saying that you have to be removed from the business. You can just choose which parts you enjoy the most.

Matt Jacob :

What if we don't want to work for other people, i.e., have that the commercial distance or connection between us and receiving a paycheck, right? What if we want to go down, really dive into the self-brand route and figure out what we're worth in in that respect, especially in the content world, the social media world, and this attention economy that we live in. How can we dive into that if we don't want to be sequestered by some brand and some commercial entity that's dictating our creative outlet and how much we're gonna get paid?

SPEAKER_04:

So you want to be free from doing client work, right? This is fantastic. So you're gonna move into the realm of content creator slash artist. And so what I would recommend most people do is keep the client work going, but don't let that be the only thing that you're working on. Start side thing. And this is where you need to build up an audience. Okay. Now, let's just say that you really enjoy fine art photography. You want to be the next Ansel Adams or whoever it is that makes beautiful art that people just want to buy and hang in galleries. This is cool. And you can do this, right? And so you can build up a body of work and probably go and hit the streets and try and find a gallery, do a group exhibit, and then eventually get to a solo show and hobnob with museum curators and artists and rich people, and so that your name gets known. And then you start working on your story because people will buy the image, but they're really buying the story behind the image maker. And so you have to develop your own mythology. And I think that's a good thing. So this is where you're doing brand building. Um, there's a family friend, uh pretty distant, who was an aspiring artist, and he worked in his parents' restaurant. And one day, uh, one of the patrons who come to the restaurant, they love the food, noticed a painting on the wall, a painting that he had done. And the he the patron asked, Where'd that painting come from? And he was so embarrassed that it was his that he thought it was like, oh my gosh, it's mine. So he didn't know what to do. But eventually, what has happened is that person said, I want to buy that painting. And he has this other career and he's able to build it. But here's the real interesting thing. You know, his hook, his point of differentiation is he would go and source rare earth materials and make his own paint. So maybe the painting is the same. Maybe it looks the same to everybody, but the fact that he makes his own paints, which many painters do not do, gives it a different kind of story. And then they start building this thing up, and now he has enough money to buy an island kind of thing. So that's that's option one. Option number two is you make content that commands a lot of attention and there's a lot of engagement. You shoot things that is your form of self-expression, and a lot of people tune in to watch it. And now you can do brand deals. Now you still have a client in a way, but it's not the same relationship because there's a lot more leverage on your side. You get to make your art, and somebody's like, we love what you do, Matt. We would love for you to do it with our thing. Would that be possible? Then you're like, well, if you're willing to pay this amount and I get to do whatever I want, then yes, we can do this. And they can pay you tens of thousands, sometimes six figures or more, depending on how big you are and what kind of audience you can command. You can do all three simultaneously, by the way. You don't have to choose one or the other. It's not a zero-sum game.

Matt Jacob :

Yeah. I think the big lesson there, and and I talk about this all the time as well with my students, is just figure out, you know, the story is underpinning all of this, right? But diversity of income or diversity of revenue streams and and you know, those opportunities is super important as well, especially in that artist's self self-brand world. But let's let's unpack the content thing a little bit because it's it's such a maze, right? And and the way you the way you describe all this is is so articulate, by the way. And make it sound simple. In reality, it's simple on paper, but it's just going out and not being a princess and just gonna smash this is is obviously hard work. And so I just want to caveat that. The content thing is a whole different ballgame altogether. And you being a master of content, and we're gonna kind of get into a little bit of your background in a minute, but where what you know with with AI right here, and we were talking about this before we kind of went live, and this potential situation where things are gonna change very rapidly in the content space. Uh, I mean, they have been anyway, but even more so probably over the next 12 months. Where do you see the opportunities lie in the content um space as an individual artist and self-brand? But more importantly, how do we even build that audience? You talk about like creating audience. Isn't building an audience just gonna be more and more difficult?

SPEAKER_04:

I I think for the short term, it is going to be more difficult because there's a proliferation of AI-generated content. And what's happened is there's a flood of quote-unquote image makers and photographers who previously had no experience doing this kind of stuff. So instead of competing against 100,000 photographers, you are probably competing against 10 million plus photographers and image makers. And it's you you're most definitely under threat. You may have seen the client pipeline slow down or people asking for ridiculously old prices, and you're feeling a downward pressure. I'm sure I'm not saying anything new to anybody, and you're probably like really angry and it's like, God, uh freaking AI, I hate AI. You know what? If we could collectively hold hands and just say a prayer and then make the AI stuff go away, we should do that. But in the world that I live in, that doesn't happen. And so what we have to do is we have to make a decision. Now we can stay with it the way we've been doing it for the last 10, 20 years, or we can try to um adopt AI tools into our workflow and try to imagine more. Um, I I've noticed a couple of things because I consume a lot of content. I've noticed people who report on the fashion industry about how certain streetwear brands have blown up. They are a photography or image-based brand. And so they create a narrative or they create surrealistic visuals. And I'm sure when I look at these images, pre-AI, it was kind of expensive and difficult to do. This is a good thing for them because that means that images will stand out. They'll pop. And that's what kind of disrupts the social feed, right? But if you're a smaller uh upstart brand, you're like, we can't afford to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to do this. What if that idea doesn't work? So if you want to stand out and you can't afford to take on this gigantic financial expenditure because you're still relatively new in the marketplace, you go work with somebody with vision and they can imagine incredible things and use their artistic eye to shoot some or all or parts of and expand or mix and match. Uh, and and the the what you can create today in a very uh from photoreal to hyper-stylized can be created with the right person and a curatorial eye.

SPEAKER_01:

If we only pay attention to the headlines, um there's just the the appropriate response is despair. But honestly, when you go into the world and wrap your arms around it, you realize that it's one piece of the story and that actually we are in the middle of the story. And so much of the hope, personally, I see is in you know, in the rivers and the trees and the nature and the creatures around us. And if you listen really closely, they're all telling us um a lot of things. And I think some of them are that just grief and hope live side by side, and that our future is actually not written yet. We we get to decide um, you know, what the the story is, and I think our hope is that um that we all choose to not just feel but to act and to move beyond um I think like you know, just observation and become I I would say like realizing the power within all of us, like the power of you know, us each as individuals to to make concrete changes in our in our future, in our world. Um and and you know, I've I think that there's just so many beautiful stories I see all the time when I choose to look. Um, and that, you know, I've recently been looking at all the the trees um, you know, uh outside. And I think it's so funny when you start paying attention to the nature around us and you realize like how we've made ourselves the center of the story. And, you know, in some ways, like humans have turned this narrative around where we're like, oh, they're just the backdrop to our story when when actually if you're paying attention, you realize like we are the backdrop to their story. They've been around, you know, thousands of years longer than us. Same thing with species, and you know, and I just I love going to nature honestly for um this sense of hope. Like, I mean, look at any creature, look at monarch butterflies. Like, I love thinking about like the journey they make, this journey around the world, and not one single life will ever be able to see the whole journey, but yet somehow they know, you know, the next generation where to go to pick up that journey and to keep going where they need to go. And there's just something so magical and wondrous about life and this, you know, just everything around us. Um, and it's not that I don't feel despair and that I'm, you know, just ignoring all of the things that we are doing, the impacts that we are having. I mean, I know very well. Um, but I also know that when we give it a chance, like it just even a tiny chance, um, how resilient, uh, and I know that that word is really overused, but um, I have seen how nature and humans can heal and regenerate. And, you know, so much of that is just about um paying attention and figuring out like how how do we heal ourselves in this world around us. And I know that's very long-winded, but um, but yeah, I I actually have quite a lot of hope and optimism for this world.

Matt Jacob :

Well, that's um it was wonderful to hear. And that there's so many things that we can we can take away from just what you said. And uh, you know, I don't want to dwell too much on your background because we have limited time and people can go in, you know, you're you're you're very much um present in the in in the in the midst. So we can, you know, I've obviously followed you for a long time, and and this is a common theme of of your narrative and what you talk about and what you try and educate. And what's so inspiring is you you live through what you you talk about. But when we see statistics and data, like 73% of wildlife disappear in the last 50 years, in the last 50 years, blows my mind in both an extremely sad way, but a very shocking way. And it's sometimes I feel like hope can become despair quite or change into despair quite rapidly, and hope is this artificial thing that we cling on to just to try and make ourselves feel better. How can we move from hope to activism or change, or whether it's us or the other side of the world who aren't kind of at the forefront of this, what can we do with our cameras, with our voices to in order to try and and make a difference? And I'm I'm going to bookend that question with with a I guess a deeper one that I'm not sure we know the answer to, but why do you think so many people don't care about these existential threats, not just to ourselves, but to the planet, to the wildlife, to nature, to everything that that you and I and many other people care about? What is it? What is it in great? You know, I I I watch a lot of this stuff. I I read a lot of this stuff. We care a lot about the the same things that you do. And we the biggest question that always sits over the top of me is well, why does no one else care? Why are we this self-centered species that just care about making the next buck and getting attention from from the wrong areas rather than giving attention and paying attention to the more meaningful ones? Um, that is many questions in one statement, pick anything and and run with it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And I mean, I think that humanity is incredibly, you know, we're we're so intelligent and we have like this ability, we're probably the only species that has the ability to like look in the past and also think about the future, right? And um, and that's really, really special. I think, though, in our great, you know, discoveries to make this world more comfortable for ourselves, um, what we've done is actually created this world where we're so disconnected in a lot of ways, um, and scared, I think, of discomfort, you know, and and actually I think many of us who have the privilege of really embracing the discomfort. And that I mean in many ways, like metaphorically and literally, like whether it is, you know, intellectual discomfort or physical discomfort for some spiritual discomfort, like whatever it is, I think a lot of it is wrapped around like this desire to put ourselves in a cocoon and not have to feel the discomfort. And um, and actually when we can't escape it, truthfully. It is part of being human. And I think when we we walk towards all the things that make us afraid, um, you it it reconnects you. It um when you choose to feel really feel the despair of what is happening, you know. I started off and mentioned it earlier, but like love and grief are our neighbors, you know, they are intricately connected. And I think by trying to prevent ourselves from grieving, it also means that we're not loving in the same way. And and that we need to all open up ourselves um and our hearts and um allow ourselves to love um one another, um, this world, the creatures we don't understand that might make us, you know, feel afraid. Um and and you know, and and I think we're so afraid of like fear and disconnection, all those things are so intricately connected. And um, and I just think on a pragmatic level, like it's so easy to get reconnected. Um it just involves like really pushing yourselves, uh pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. Um, and I think like we all have to work to that. Um, and once you're there, you realize like how absolutely magnificent and how little there is to be afraid of. Um, you know, in the I'm talking in big sweeping terms here, like there's a lot to be afraid of, actually. But at the same time, I just think about um for me, it's like, you know, the natural world. And I also mean that um you don't have to travel far. Like even in the most urban landscapes on the planet, there is so much nature all around us. You don't have to travel to the remote, most remote places on the planet. And in fact, I don't think it's good to do that because, you know, we need to keep some of these places uh pristine and they don't need more human impact. Like one of my things lately is like we don't all need to be going to Antarctica and to like all corners of the planet. And um, you know, we're impacting nature. So how do we live more? You know, it's a question for all of us. How do we live um with less, um, a little more in our communities? And I think when you are like really fully involved in your community, um, you see how how how much you can do. Um, and all the stories that I tell in my work are really very much based on communities coming together to like reimagine this world which we've woven. And it's really important to remember that we have woven this, like we've done this. Um, and that, you know, human ingenuity is beautiful. But I do think um, you know, you've asked these big questions. I don't know the answer to all of them, but I I think that over and over again I see that that it's really important not to just give up. Like, like, you know, just empathy and love and care and being engaged and wrapping your arms around anything you can that um makes you more engaged is is like the way forward.

Matt Jacob :

Give me some idea of of how you've evolved as a person through doing this craft. I imagine, you know, the things that come to mind just through my own experience, but as well as kind of seeing a little bit of behind the scenes of how you work, patience, empathy. I mean, it was really interesting. I think I I heard maybe it was the chat you had with Sean, Sean Tucker, who was also on the show um earlier this year. You said many of us feel nervous, right? Walking in, even if there may be actors who I know you you photograph a lot, but nervous walking to a room either full of strangers or just with one stranger that you haven't kind of and then suddenly now this camera and this kind of weird contrived environment. Is that a real skill to kind of a understand that energy and to empathize with it, and then to provide this almost this safe space where people can really eventually be themselves? Is this you know that maybe is that I'm probably putting words in your mouth, is that something that you've really learned to hone over the years? And and if so, is there anything else that's really for sure?

SPEAKER_08:

Um yeah, I mean, yeah, it's all it's it's all stuff I I've I've it's you know, continual learning process, uh, and in you know, I never stop learning. Um, so my yeah, the way I communicate with my sort of sitter is constantly uh evolving, and you know, and it check changes from person to person. It isn't sort of um, you know, one sort of set way of doing things. It's uh because uh yeah, I think empathy is really the you know one of the key ingredients uh to be in a to to what I do at least. Yeah, you have to you have to understand how your sitter is is is feeling to some degree um in order to get the best out of them or to get them to um to where you want them to sort of be with you in that environment, I suppose. Uh and so yeah, I mean uh yeah, and and and everyone differently it can be professional actors, you know, they're it can they could you know professional actors can still be very shy and uh nervous and you know uh actors are just like any any other job, actually. You know, there's a full spectrum of type of person that does that particular job. Uh so but I guess what I what I do expect from actors, I suppose what I try to do is communicate to whoever I'm working with in a language that I understand and or language that I think they'll understand rather, and um what an actor should understand is that their thoughts and feelings and body language are all communicating something. And so uh you know, that's what I'm gonna be photographing. And so um and so when they sort of you know first sit down, I'll be taking pictures of somebody who will be thinking, I wonder what I should be doing. That's what the pictures will say, because that's what the person is thinking. But then as time moves on, hopefully my sitter will start thinking or feeling other things. And then that's what I start to photograph. So yeah, it's not it's not really uh I s I was chatting to somebody at a party once and I was explaining kind of what I do, and uh she works as she had something to do with like neurolinguistic programming, basically. And she was like, Oh, you're you're what you're doing is neurolinguistic pro programming, and I was like, Oh, okay. I hadn't really thought about it like that, but you know, the the words you use when you meet somebody, um, and I don't I don't really think about this in my personal life at all, but like in my professional life, I suppose I do. But it's like, uh, you know, I I won't I won't say to somebody like um I won't even say like, oh, don't be nervous, because I don't want to say the word nervous. I'd say like, you know, this is uh this process is is easy, you know, this is a space where you can like just do your do your job. It's like using like positive words rather than like, you know, don't be stressed. Because I often, you know, I think you're sort of putting that word into someone's head.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08:

So yeah, I just think you can use language and it's not about like tricking people, it's not, you know, you're not, but it's just about yeah, trying to create an environment because your sitter in my in my uh work, obviously, like you're both trying to do the same thing, right? You're both trying to make a good picture together. Like your sitter wants to help you to help them, you know. So you're just trying to like find your way together to to make that happen for each other. I think, you know, the the only times I sort of struggle, I think, is if somebody uh has a lack of experience and or they've got too many like preconceived ideas of like what they should be doing. Um but it you know again if it if it's if it's an actor and it you know, it could be the sort of actor who is sort of like you know, sort of a generally sort of nervous and sort of stressy kind of person, but they they will understand that what you're doing is making something together. So, you know, what you're fundamentally doing is create is make turning this 3D real life space that you're in, and you're converting it into two dimensions, and what is that gonna communicate that image that you make together? Like, what is that so uh you know, anyone with any type of experience as an actor will kind of understand that that's what you're trying to do together, and so um and so yeah, it's this sort of space between performance, but then like all good, you know, really good performance uh it's actually truthful. So that's the that's the um sort of little frequency that me and my sitters try to sort of meet on, I suppose.

Matt Jacob :

Tori, what do you mean when you say you know, I understand this dichotomy or this I hope this kind of evolution from performance because everyone performs in their own way when they come in, right? Especially if it's new to them, whether they're an actor, great performance, you know, that that's kind of often their natural state. Or if it's a non-actor, they're still they still have the shield on and a mask until you're able to really get underneath and just allow them to show their true selves. What do you mean, like per good performances really truth? Is is that what do you what do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_08:

Uh well I suppose it's it's it's it's a performance in the sense that they are sat in front of you and you're pointing a camera at them. So but I think because what you know, my what I do, what I've sort of ended up doing is it's just basically telling my sitters just to like listen to music, you know, just play music loud and just listen. And so it's a performance in the sense that yeah, like you know, that you've constructed this uh this environment. But then I think, yeah, it it really I suppose it's the the the the sense of sort of uh sincerity or sort of truthfulness, I suppose, just comes from when I think I sense that my sitter has sort of stopped trying to do anything other than listen to music and then just have the capacity to be able to sort of share that with the camera to some degree.

Matt Jacob :

As in whatever's coming up for them in that moment.

SPEAKER_08:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, I think you know, music can trigger thoughts of you know family and lovers and you know, memories of all sorts, and so um I suppose it's those kind of emotions or or sort of like I don't care what they're thinking about or whatever, you know what I mean? That's irrelevant to me, but but I can sense I can sense I mean just chap I was photographing yesterday, he's lovely, lovely guy, quite quite kind of inexperienced, and uh, you know, it probably took about two hours until I really sensed that it sort of uh clicked for him, but like, oh, like it's those it's the personal feelings that I should be that's okay for me to be thinking about. Uh and then there's this sort of like realization in your sitters that um that's the interesting stuff. It's not you know, don't don't don't try and look interesting. Uh don't try and do anything. You know, it's um yeah, it's a it's uh it's a weird paradox. Um there's a lot of paradoxes in photography, I think. There's a lot of paradoxes in sort of talking about this, you know, like yes, I tell my sitters like don't you don't need to think about how the pictures look at all because if that's what you're thinking about, that's what the pictures will look. There'll be pictures of somebody thinking about how do I look. Maybe that's what you want. I mean that's what sort of fashion photography is in a way, right? It's like, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it's you know, somebody like just looking pretty cool, and that's great. But it's not necessarily what I'm uh doing, I suppose.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, one of the things I didn't say, but which I feel very strongly about with photojournalism is that it provides you literally a visual record of history. Um and without the visual record, yeah, I mean, history can be manipulated full stop, even with visual records, but it's harder to rewrite history when you do have these records. And even if you're in a state-controlled space and the records aren't coming out in the present moment, the creation of the evidence, I think, is very important.

Matt Jacob :

Yeah, that's that's a good point, which I didn't really think about. But um when when it comes to those records and and people going through so much um to create these records and to create narratives, I guess, uh where how how have you seen it impact people's mental health? Well, you know, why why is that suddenly but not suddenly, but why is that such an important part that you want to teach and mentor and and approach?

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, I think uh it started for me. Um, I've been working with photographers globally who cover conflict for a long time. Um and then I started working on a book called It's called Conversations on Conflict Photography. Um and it's a series of interviews with uh photographers from around the world and with some photo editors. And um essentially the the premise of the book was kind of like, what's the point? Like what like what is the point of conflict photography? Um and I really wanted to answer that question. Uh, not because I think there's no point, but because I wanted to just kind of open the question up and think through what is the work that it does? Is it successful? When does it fail? What are the challenges? And in conducting the interviews for that book, one of the things that really jumped out at me as the author was almost every person I spoke to, um, without them necessarily always being aware of it, would tell me things that essentially suggested like you have really dealt with some emotional tolls here. And some people were were more aware and would say, like, oh, I experienced X and had PTSD, right? Like kind of a cause and effect thing. And then other people were much less aware and would tell me stories like um, like one person was saying how for the longest time, um, any time somebody would just light a match, right, he'd get really freaked out because the smell reminded him of TNT from some bombings he'd covered. Um and another person was talking about how um she had photographed in a a very deadly, bloody attack, and took one photograph of a young man, maybe like 17 or 18. Um, and he's he's dead. Uh and it's it's one of those photographs that editors would say, like, oh, this is a good composition. It's a strange thing to say when you're talking about um a young man who's been killed. But it's a powerful photo. And the photographer, and the photographer is also quite young. Um, so this young man was probably not that much younger than her, a bit, um, but not more than maybe 10 years. And she was telling me about how she didn't. Understand it, but every single day for weeks, she would open her laptop and look at the picture of this boy and start crying. Um, and that to me was a very clear signal of like you're you're processing something, but not processing it effectively, and you're still kind of stuck in this trauma. But she didn't see it like that. Right. So I was just kind of doing these interviews and hearing all of this. Um, and the book is not specifically about mental health, although that is winds up becoming a thread through the book. But the more um I was, and that book took me four years to do. Um, and in that process, I started realizing like mental health tools for photojournalists in hostile environments um are real. And I was doing research on the side about that and learning more about like what's is there any published literature on this? And there's there was a bit um most of it was focused specifically on PTSD, which is a very clinical condition. And there there wasn't the kind of looser categories of anxiety or burnout or depression. Um, and so I just kind of started more and more work on that and did another book a few years later that was essentially about kind of uh the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movements. But at this point, I was already aware uh that journalists working in hostile environments are facing these kinds of risks. And so I knew that was going to show up in my research and interviews. And lo and behold, it did, right? The kind of mental health tolls of uh of covering a pandemic, which is kind of inescapable. It's this invisible enemy that seems to be lurking everywhere. Um and then, you know, the Black Lives Matter movement um were some of the most physically dangerous for American journalists in a way that the United States had not seen physical attacks on journalists before. So I mean, it was just kind of it's there and it's creeping up. Um, and so I've just been researching and writing publications on it, but then also started uh advocating for more mental health training as part of safety initiatives. And I'm not the only one. There's I have a coterie of colleagues who are doing this as well. Um, and so at this point, I'm now co-leading um this nationwide initiative for Ukraine, off to Ukraine in a few days to go um work on that one. But it's on mental health um for Ukrainian media workers. Um and so like the mental health tolls there are some of the expected tolls, um, but some is very specific to their situation. And if I were to do a similar initiative for Palestinian photographers or Sudanese photographers, some of it, there'd be some overlap and then there'd be differences based on the specifics of um what's happening locally for these journalists.

Matt Jacob :

How how can they, if they don't have Dr. Lauren Walsh to to go over and help them and talk to them about how how can they help themselves? How how can they become aware of this and start processing a better um care for their for their mental health?

SPEAKER_03:

I mean So it's a it's a an excellent question. Um and the one of the best things to do, which is also impossible for many local photographers and a hundred percent impossible for Palestinian photographers who can't leave, one of the best things is actually that take a break. Right. But you can't say that to someone for whom there's no break, right? Like the war is engulfing you, not you've chosen to go and cover the war. So barring the ability to say, like, step back for a bit, take a break. Um, you have to try to find other strategies. Like so there are online resources um for photojournalists, it's and for journalists at large. Some make use of that, others don't. It also can be culturally specific if it's a culture that is more open to mental health discussions versus less open to mental health discussions. It can wind up being a really practical resource thing. Like if you, if your Wi-Fi is limited, are you going to read a bunch of articles about mental health or are you going to, you know, make like it, there's also kind of thinking through priorities in in that sense. So there are a few situations around the world where I think the it's really, really difficult. Um I mean, the the basic, basic tips, even if you like can't get away, is find some kind of self-care practice that can help ground you a little bit. Right. So even if it's like for some people, it's a little bit of exercise. For other people, it's an activity like cooking or knitting. Um for other people, it's just meditation or yoga. And I know that these like in the middle of a war zone, these it can sound silly to say this, but it doesn't change the war. But if it helps keep you a little more, a little calmer, a little less um with these stresses, you know, the the reality is it's impossible to remove all these stresses. And even for the photojournalists where you can say, like, you need to now take a break, you still are not going to remove all the stresses. Like the stresses are there, and that's part of um this kind of work. You just have to find the productive ways of dealing with it. Um and yeah, so it's it's it's not a simple answer. Um, I think also being in contact with people who understand your situation can be very helpful. Um, so I tend to find sometimes that photojournalists, you know, come back from covering something awful and they're like, I don't know how to interact with like I can't talk to people right now because they're worried about the subway being delayed and I'm freaking out and having nightmares because of what I saw two days ago. So I think just kind of surrounding yourself with people who you don't necessarily need to talk it through if you're not that kind of person, but who are not gonna ask you questions that feel really off to you.

Matt Jacob :

Yeah, a community that can understand without saying anything, right? You know, because they've been there, they've done it before, they've been in similar situations. I think we under undervalue sometimes the power of community, even if it's a silent community. And I think as photographers, we can be so isolated in our own head because it's an individual pursuit, essentially. Uh, I mean, I'm interested to hear about how what the community is like in terms of photojournalism and the agencies that all kind of cross-pollinate. But you know, it's it's a natural course of action that we we become these individual, you know, idealists and um warriors, and especially when then you're put into that type of environment. Um, you know, it's it's it's a like you talked about earlier, it's a form of PTSD. You come back from those types of environments if you're able to get out of it uh intact. And you you're like, well, what do I do with myself now? No one understands what I went through, no one gets it. So I think that's why community and can be can be so important um and can be lacking sometimes, if I'm honest, what I what I see.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I mean, I I will say that um you know, therapy can be phenomenal for some people. Um, and I I feel like the US maybe has a tendency towards like, oh, if you have an issue, go to therapy. Like, yeah, yeah.

Matt Jacob :

Therapies everything.

SPEAKER_03:

Um but the exactly. Um but the the studies, the clinical studies um that are thinking about kind of journalism and mental health are repeatedly showing exactly what you said that the best um or most successful and in some ways simplest form of the word that's always used as resilience, kind of getting through something, is by having a support network or community. And it actually doesn't need to be um Kali, like it can be a social community, but having um isolation is is not good. Like that is kind of repeated through all the literature. Trying to do it on your own is going to be significantly more difficult than just surrounding yourself with people who who make you feel okay.

Matt Jacob :

Define depth for us, so why why would this kind of like urge to find this kind of almost abstract thing that we call depth in in photography?

SPEAKER_09:

I think it's like it's it's like um like um dissecting your own humanity and everything that you'd been through, pain, heartbreak, and everything, and trying to find a way to use that all to create something, you know, to like and photographing was kind of that was also soothing for me, especially like photographing wildlife. It was it was definitely moments where you're able to really be in be in the moment completely and be um like my I remember I stumbled upon a wolf just in in this um in this valley and it it got way too close. I got way too close to it, and my heart just started pounding like crazy. And I was scared, but I was you know, I was so thrilled. And um that's not the picture that's in the book, but it's definitely one of those moments where you know it soothed me, it it it excited me, and you know, gave me everything that I think I ever needed and wanted.

Matt Jacob :

Wow. Very, very powerful. What what was this what were you trying to soothe, do you think? Was it this kind of upbringing and and loss of identity and not really kind of knowing your place in your immediate world as well as kind of the the the wider world in general?

SPEAKER_09:

Yeah, I I think so. I think a lot of us um artists feel the world and see the world a different way, and a lot of that is, you know, there's a lot of pain with that. There's a lot of you know of that um sense of uh sense of loss and sense of um you know just trying to trying to find who you are, which is um so it's um yeah, I I I don't I don't I don't really know it's so reactive. You know, it's um you know I I think like Jesse that um you know the founder of Charcoal, he always talks about it as an addiction. And I I don't go as far as calling it an addiction, but it's definitely something that is uh is impulsive, incredibly impulsive. Um it's uh it's beautifully impulsive.

Matt Jacob :

Yeah, so it it it's uh I I empathize with that a lot. It's it's this something from deep, deep within that that uh you know we call it impulsive or innate um that that comes out through through camera. We kind of try and make sense of it afterwards, right, in a retrospective way. Um which is why photo books are so wonderful in sequencing and editing and and kind of that that um almost posthumous look at what we've what we've lost or what we've trying to find in terms of uh the images that that we're making. So that kind of brings me on to the book, right? Um we we really want to kind of go go deep into what you've just put out there in the world, which is a a wonderful piece of work. I mean, I don't have physical copy, but the physical copy looks, from what I can tell, looks pretty epic in terms of the design and the structure. We'll talk about that. Um I've been privileged to have an online copy and obviously seen seen a lot of a lot of that. Tell us about it. Let's just start kind of um with the title blank notes and tell us about kind of the the subject matter, how it came about, the process, and just kind of your philosophies around what you you're putting out there with this book.

SPEAKER_09:

Um yeah, um, yeah, it was I think Jesse and I had met um about seven years ago um at uh Chicken Review, and my work was um it lacked depth at that point. Um it was most mainly food, a few portraits and things like that. And um it was encouraged for me to uh to find more depth. Uh I it was it was hard. It was hard going there the first time, you know. I I'd never had any sort of criticism. So that was the beginning of that journey of just you know changing my medium. It was I was using digital at that time, and not to say the digital's field are bad, but you know, in order to find that different feel, I definitely went towards film. And so that started the journey of just like creating a different narrative that was beyond you know the reality that you see it in your um in your media environment. Um, like Daido Moriyama, um uh Daisuke, Yakoda, like people like especially Japanese Vataris, Masi Safase, um, were these inspirations early on in that work that kind of gave me the idea that I could make work that was not so literal, uh, and that I could make a uh um you know, I can make work, uh long format work and make it into kind of a movie. Um and you look through it like scenes in a in a slow black and white movie, and um with you know, so many mentors in my life like Jesse Lenz and Igor Posner, who kind of really opened my mind to movies and different books, because I was very naive at that moment. Um I was just I was just doing it impulsively, and I wasn't really thinking about anything. Um but with a lot of um you know mentorship, they kind of just opened me up and I was able to find that you know what makes anyone's work unique and especially mine is you know everything that I bring to it, uh my my story, things that have happened in my life, whether they're um good or bad, and you know, bringing it to the surface and creating from that feeling as opposed to creating it literally, was very beneficial for me. You know, like the the emotions kind of just bled into that creativity and allowed for it to continuously flow and um and then I got too into Japanese horror films, you know, and and then all the inspiration just kept going and going, and um things were happening in my life that were good and bad. There was a lot of you know um struggle at that moment of of family health and things like that. And uh yeah, I definitely use a lot of that to um like help me deal with it. You know, you bring it to the surface and you take some photos, and you know, there's um like my dad's uh writings just in the beginning of the book. There's he would write these um Buddhist prayers continuously over and over again, and we decided to put it at the front and the back of the book. And um when you open it up, you can you can feel it. It's very um, it's a physical thing as well as it's um you know a visual thing.

Matt Jacob :

Yeah, it's uh it's also I mean I I can't wait to actually to touch it, but um tell us a little bit about uh I I I imagine kind of those life struggles that you had with family health. Um you can you can share with us that if you want to, if not, I totally understand. But it seems like that was a real kind of spark for for the I guess the theme of this book, or certainly the thematic focus and the relationship with life and death and and afterlife, before life. Is is that true in in essence?

SPEAKER_09:

Yeah, I mean, um uh growing up, uh especially with all these rituals, it weirdly influenced me and also um, you know, it um yeah, and you know, it's it's something that I'm not I you know I'm not even sure if it's necessarily real or not, but um it it it you know the the life and death part and the in-between has always felt pretty close um to me and and whether I wanted to or not, you know, I when I was growing up I would I would have umdoors slammed shut, um you know, open in in my room and there'd be nothing there. Um so it's always kind of been around lurping. Um and like during this um kind of uh episode of of like family health, I I'd been feeling very desperate. And you know when you're desperate you kind of pray to the heavens and and things like that. Um and you know things that I'd kind of forgot about as a child or you know chose not to really bring with me to adulthood kind of came back. Um not not in the way that it did when I was a child, but um as an adult I would get visits in my dreams from people that have passed on, or um things like that. So it I don't know if art you know, art was imitating life or life was imitating art, but um you know it was definitely something that's always been very like did you ever feel like you walk around and there's someone behind you but there's no one there at all?

Matt Jacob :

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_09:

I I feel like I felt like that my whole life.

Matt Jacob :

That's a really good uh analogy, actually, to get to kind of describe the book. And um that's kind of how it made me feel looking through this. And there's you know, for for people, um just some context for people listening and and and watching who obviously may not have the book yet, but um Jesse Lenz, as in kind of charcoal press, you mentioned Jesse, he's he's um founder of Charcoal Press, which published the published the book. Um and the book is centered around Taoism, right? So it am I correct in thinking it's your father that has this or had has this belief that we live in a supernatural world that existed with the physical world.

SPEAKER_09:

Yeah, uh it's it's definitely both both my parents and um apparently the story is is that they started believing in a lot of this stuff because of me. I was very I was very sick as a child. Uh okay and I was very, very sensitive. Um uh I don't know if I don't I don't know if like I don't want it to become like a ghost podcast and tell more and tell more stories, but yeah, come on, give us a go.

Matt Jacob :

It's Halloween.

SPEAKER_09:

We're five days away from Halloween, so that's true. Um but um yeah, I was an extremely sensitive kid, and uh we we have these rituals um and these festivals, the the Hungry Ghost Festival, uh, and and anytime uh it's an anniversary of a of an ancestor. we would go to their um we would go to their uh gravesites and offer food and leave food burn um paper offerings which uh pretty much blank notes that's kind of where it comes from is like the the burning of Joss paper um you know to the afterlife for for the uh uh for the deceased to spend money in the afterlife um so whenever I was a child uh after that I'd be coming home and I would just I would start getting a fever um and it's happened probably three or four times in my life where immediately after being in the cemetery I would I would get a really really high fever and I would feel like I would be being twisted inside out and uh I remember my my parents uh one time when I was at my oldest uh which probably was about 12 at the time um I remember just burning I was seeing red and they put me in front of the altar you know in the middle of the night I was screaming my head off and I could just hear them pray and pray and pray and then I heard a uh crack in the ceiling and then it just went silent and then the the the fever broke and I kind of washed my hands of everything. I was like I don't want any part of this this is way too scary um you know so my parents started they only told me this recently that they only started believing in all this stuff because of me because I scared them to death if that's funny or not bless them I know right it's it's funny because you know I'm 39 now and they just told me this

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Matt Jacob

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