The MOOD Podcast

Finding Contentment, Craft, And Community In Photography - Answering Your Questions!

• Matt Jacob

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What if your best work starts with a quiet cup and a clear mind? We kick off the year with an honest, unscripted 'Ask Me Anything' episode that explores how small rituals, sharper definitions, and a steadier inner compass can change both your art and your days. From an early morning espresso and two loyal dogs to the decision to ignore empty metrics, I trace a path from presence to better pictures, and hopefully a calmer life behind the lens.

I talk about instinct, happiness, success, and the quieter realities of building a life around photography. We also move through what it actually takes to get better without burning out, why alignment matters more than attention, and the long game of creating work and communities that genuinely care.

I hope it helps, and thanks for all of you who sent in questions.

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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Matt Jacob :

Welcome to another episode of Moments of Mood and Happy New Year to you all. I hope you're settling into 2026 gently. Because this week I thought I'd do another AMA style episode and spend some time responding to a selection of questions that you guys have sent over in the past couple of weeks. A lot of these came off the back of the recent Moments of Mood video and article I did about not caring about your photography. So there's a nice mix here, some personal questions, some about photography, some about caring, and some that lean more into mindset process and how all of this Malaki fits into everyday life. Um, none of this is necessarily planned or scripted or really thought about. I've just pulled some questions together and I'm going to work through them just one by one right in front of you now, kind of thinking out loud and answering as honestly as I can in the moment. This isn't meant to be instructional or definitive at all. And I'm not trying to land on any neat conclusions. I'm just going to babble for 30, 40 minutes because it's more of an open conversation and hopefully something you can listen to while just running around the house, walking, editing, or picking up the camera, whatever you might be doing. Once again, thank you so much for being here and thank you for all of your contributions and lovely messages. I may also take this opportunity to mention my book club again. Super passionate about it. It's a wonderful communal space online where a lot of these types of questions and topics are discussed. And we, of course, review review books, uh, photo books, and artist critiques, and it's totally free to join and to participate in. Link is in the description below. So hopefully I will see you there. All right, enough from me on that. Let's get into it and start with the first question we've got today. Okay, and these questions are in no particular order. Um, I really haven't spent I spent a lot of time on moments of mood episodes and a lot of time on my substar articles, and of course a lot of time on guest episodes, but these I don't spend a lot of time on. Um the main reason is you guys want an authentic reaction and answer, right? So um I'll try and piece together some of these and kind of understand the theme of a lot of them uh hopefully at the end. But the first question is from Sophia Marin. Marin. Um, what modest, unremarkable thing ends up doing a lot of emotional heavy lifting in your life? I saw a similar question as well um to this, and it was something like what seemingly insignificant thing contributes to your happiness or contributes greatly to your happiness? And um I there are a lot of things like this, and it's something that we think about, I guess, every day, but it really kind of boils down to initially about what we mean by I guess happiness. And I think the original question used emotional heavy lifting, but I kind of take that as um the contributions to to happiness. Um so yeah, I mean, we're not here to really discuss happiness. Um, we all pick up cameras and we're all interested in artistic craft because we feel like it makes us happier, whatever that means. Um, I don't think there's a thing as just constant joy, um, unless you're on drugs all the time and that's artificial anyway, and not very healthy. Um are we in a virtual reality? Are we in the matrix? Um, what's real? What's truth? What is happiness, right? So I think a lot of it depends on how we define that. Um for me, it's yeah, like I said, it's not I don't think there's such a thing as constant joy and it's not success or achievement. I used to think it was like some achievements for me really made me feel happier in the moment, but extremely short-lived, right? I've talked about this before. Once you achieve something or you you you reach a goal or you hit a target or you go viral. I mean, it's so many people say to me, Oh, you should check out this post, it went viral. They must be so proud of themselves. So, what the f are you talking about? Um, you know, it's just I don't want to digress into that kind of societal construct that I have serious problems with. But um, you know, it used to be a little bit like that. But these days, um, for me, you know, if we were to start with a foundational definition of what makes me happy or how I see the definition of happiness and what that means to me, it's more like the ability, I guess, to return to contentment. And then I guess you're going to ask, well, how do you define contentment? Well, for me, peace, quiet, knowing that I have done everything to the best of my abilities and moral responsibilities and ethical intentions. For me, that's become a lot more important than maybe it was in my early adulthood, and which is perfectly understandable. I've had to let go of that kind of self-hate a lot of the time. Um, and I know a lot of us battle with that. So, yeah, like peace, quiet, equanimity, um, fulfillment. What really kind of like makes me feel like I've either helped someone or helped myself, my family, or progressed. I think progression is, you know, an innate human desire. And desire is something dangerous in itself. But I think we always feel happier when we're moving towards something, but that's obviously has its own intrinsic danger as there's something dangling there all the time. So I think it's very important to really understand kind of this kind of uh almost abstract construct of happiness. For me, it is um about making a difference in someone's life, and that life might be mine, it might be making a difference in my own life. Um, but a lot of the time it's it's just making really small impacts in other people's lives, and it's trying to not be happy in retrospect, not look back and go, oh, I was happy then, or that was a and I think there's a question about this later. And if there isn't, I'll touch upon it at the end. Not look back all the time because that's kind of the a formulaic way of becoming depressed, essentially. Like if you're always being nostalgic and looking back and kind of wondering what could have been or what was, and being happy or sad about that, then that's not a it's not a happy way to be. But also like understanding that um we live in a momentary kind of existence, right? There is, is there such a thing as the present? Uh, because we're constantly either going from past to future or past to future, past straight through present into anticipating what's next. Anyway, like this, I have not answered this question at all. I do apologize. Um insignificant thing or or uh unremarkable thing ends up contributing to uh to my emotional heavy lifting or happiness. Well, I mean, it's gotta be the little things that I think I talked about this on the last day, maybe and I haven't changed. Like I wake up in the morning and my first few hours of every morning are the most pleasurable. It's usually we wake up early enough where everyone else is still asleep, or at least it's quiet and it's peaceful, and I know that there is kind of this equanimity that I can kind of grab onto in those first few hours. Um, but the insignificant thing really is a cup of espresso. I mean, I you for those that know me, know that I I'm sat here in a studio on top of a specialty coffee shop that I've I've now owned for a few years. Coffee has been a huge part of my my uh the the passion and the hobby side of my life for over a decade now. And um, I consider myself a coffee snob, but in the best sense possible, where I want people to experience coffee, not just taste it. And the same with photographers, like we can, we can just dip into photography and taste. And I I wrote about this as I uh as I inferred in in my introduction here to my recent article and video uh a few weeks ago with um why no one cares about your photography. Um we can we can kind of like dip into the the fabric of photography and um enjoy picking up a camera and taking photos, but without kind of the deeper experience of it, like really experiencing everything that surrounds the camera, with the camera being kind of the cherry on top, um being so immersed with with whatever you're experiencing at that time, and it could be the moment you press the shutter button, but 99% of the time it isn't, right? Because that is literally a hundredth of a second or faster. It's the experience. And I want I I'm on this kind of quest to to make people experience what coffee can be experienced as. Um, a single cup of like 20 milliliters or 20 grams of coffee for me in the morning is like little drops of heaven, and it lasts with me for 10 minutes. And on the face of it, extremely insignificant, but it allows me to sit in the present and just enjoy that cup and really uh dissect it, digest it, analyze it. And just again, it's like sitting, meditating for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, however long you do it, just being able to kind of find that equanimity and find that mindfulness and just when and and once you dive into that deeper, deeper, it might be whatever you do, right? It might be reading your your child a bit uh a bedtime story, but being completely focused and immersed in that moment, there is an intrinsic joy to that. There really is like this feeling of contentment and happiness that you can't quite touch, but it's it's it's there. And um, I always wondered what people were talking about um years ago. People talk to me about meditation, mindfulness, being in the present moment. So all kind of cliched words flying around, but a lot of it's true, and you can apply that to everything and anything that you do. And I try and help people do that for photography, right? So without getting too esoteric and too meta, um just just having moments of mindfulness, I think would be uh in the morning, would be a great way of putting it. And by the afternoon, I'm getting quite distracted and I'm focusing on tasks and stuff that pop up and trying to meet deadlines and stuff like that. And and life and work, well, kind of the the the the um the creative side of life kind of takes over as well as the business side of things, and by the evening I'm kind of trying to revert back to them the morning moments. Um, so definitely that that is usually coupled with just um the presence of dogs. Uh I for those that have animals, especially dogs, will know what I'm talking about. But again, like they they're great teachers for us because they know nothing else other than love. Um, unfortunately, a lot of dogs also know what hate is, but they just want to love and be loved, and they're very, very unconditional and simple in that respect. So when I get up in the morning and I'm spending, usually my wife gets up the same same time as me, and we just sit with coffee, journals, and dogs. And that could be anywhere from 10 minutes to two hours. And um, those seemingly insignificant things set me up for the day. And when I travel and I don't have that, I I'm a kind of a different person. And it and I don't like relying on anything like that. I always want to be able to just rely on myself and my own inner thinkings and my brain to just to be able to be happy. Um, so those are kind of the insignificant things. Obviously, cameras photography come into it. I would think they're less insignificant than maybe the the aforementioned things, but obviously, photography is for me is is everything. Um so I wouldn't consider it insignificant, but that that would be be up there, I guess. Um yeah, I think that's I think that's answered the question-ish. Um I probably done a really long answer there for something that could have been answered. It was a good question, really, really good question. Um, and I like to think all of our lives are made up of all of these little insignificant things that culminate into just a beautiful way of being, right? But um, we're the pursuit of that is something that we're we're endlessly targeting, I guess, or endlessly going through. And just to put an end spin on that, um, I think you know, going back to this definition of happiness, I think what I've been able to kind of tap into a little bit, and I'm diving more and more deeper into this as my years in this life progress, is being able to kind of finding the way to be happy in any moment. And I'm not talking kind of the Western definition of being happy or any kind of definition of being happy. We have to understand what that means for us, just as we have to understand what the word success means for us. But we we only have our minds, right? Everything else is external, superficial. We only have our minds to be able to find happiness in any moment. So if we're able to not have to rely on other things like my coffee in the morning, the insignificant things like my coffee in the morning or my dogs, I know that my dogs are not always going to be there. I know that there might be some time where I can't enjoy the coffee that I can, right? Or um I have to be able to find ways to be happy in any moment. And that that always comes back to me, and that always comes back to the way my brain, or I can process things in my brain in a way that I can just be happy. That this happiness should not be a pursuit, it should be a way of being. And um sounds a little bit Buddhist, and you know, I've I I I've tapped into that a little bit over the last few years, but um, isn't that a beautiful and and liberating way to think? Isn't that a beautiful and liberating way to carry yourself in life, to know and to be confident that whatever happens, even in times of suffering, I can find ways to be happy in any moment. And so um those types of tools, which I've kind of tapped into a little bit and found those ways, but it's it's a constant practice. Um those tools may seem insignificant, but actually they're probably the most significant tools we will ever have in life. And so, kind of that way of being is really the antidote to suffering. And so I want to be able to be like that. Again, not get carried away with this desire of because that also is a huge cause of much suffering that we have. It's just this concept around desire and the pursuit of something all the time. So, again, there's just this double-edged sword, right? But um, hopefully that kind of makes sense as to where I'm coming from with that. And um, we can have all of these amazing things, and I'm extremely fortunate and privileged to have a wonderful life um on the outside, but it all comes down to what's going on in here, and therefore, happiness is the source of happiness, is surely only in here and how we not only how we frame things and re-reframe things, but how mindful we are of any moment and how we're able to dissipate any suffering if that comes upon us, or at least handle it in a in a way that can be can can mitigate or minimize that suffering. So anyway, I'm going down a Buddhist track here. And um I'm not Buddhist, but I like to think I kind of take some lessons from a lot of philosophical stances, whether it's Stoism or Buddhism or even other types of religions or other kind of secular ways of looking at life. Um, and that's why reading and book clubs, so there's a plug, and book clubs and reading is so important, so that we can be as educated and as rationally mindful of different philosophical ways of how to live this wonderful thing called life. Um, anyway, I hope that answers it. Next question is from Enna Laneve. Enna, I know you, part of the book clubs, great to you've got two questions. So uh I'll try and make this shorter than the last one. I feel like I really um just went on a tangent there. Um Anna says, Have you ever created something based on a gut feeling that felt almost illogical but turned out very successful? Yes. And then the second question is Did synchronicity play a role where everything seemed to align perfectly? Yes. Short answers to those questions are yes. I will, of course, elaborate. So again, um to just look at this first question. Have you ever created something based on a gut feeling that felt almost illogical but turned out very successful? Okay, so what do you mean by success? Sorry to be that guy, but what do you mean by successful? So the the the our from where I'm brought up in the UK, one reason I left the UK is because of the culture is geared around, well, ironically, it's geared around the the metrics, the external metrics of success, but it's also as soon as you become successful in their in their, I say their that that culture's minds, then comes tall poppy syndrome and people want to cut you down. One big reason I left the UK is because I don't like that mentality. Um, I was conditioned into kind of becoming a pilot and the private jet pilot and and earning a good salary. And I thought, okay, well, now I'm successful, right? Or aren't I? So shouldn't something magical happen to me? Turned out the opposite, right? I was miserable. Um so define successful, okay. So I mean, I uh there I mean to put it simply, to really dilute this, and I don't want to kind of because I I want to give a short, short enough answer is we got like financial success and kind of the material success that everyone kind of applauds you for, you know, in the Western world. Well done. Um, actually, not just the Western world, everywhere. Well done. You know, Asia is is just as bad for it. They want to, if their kid goes to a reputable, define reputable, it's all societal constructs. A reputable university, wow, it's like celebration time. Um, and the the constant push, stress, and pressure from generations before us and from parents to achieve right their definition of success really, really screws the younger generation up. Um, I know so many people that have been damaged because they have been trying to live in their parents' image. And it's not, I don't blame parents. Um, I'm not a parent uh for many reasons, uh, but I I understand how difficult that might be. I have a real issue with the way we define success in this this world. And you only have to look at any probably pick any country, and you can find the way they revolve their politics, economics, culture around this idea of. Of going to a good school, getting good grades, earning a good salary, and being in a reputable job. And so this is a wonderful community, right? A wonderful platform in the photography community and on the podcast platform and other communal online platforms in the in the creative industries. We can discuss these things and as to what, if if the word successful is something that's meaningful to everyone and that's important to everyone. I mean, if you're a painter, define success. Is that like reverence and is that recognition? I mean, again, just go and watch my last moments of mood video. It's no is the answer to that. It's yes, they're all niceties and they're all, but they're all superficial. They're all kind of additions that might just make that inner success taste a little bit sweeter, right? So I think for me, success, you know, we're coming back to your question about creating something based on gut. And I have a lot to say about gut and instinct. I always teach people to follow your gut, listen, like train your brain to listen to your instinct and to be in tune with your body. And I'm not really talking about, I mean, we can talk about the science of your gut and the second, the what they call the second brain, new gut. But when we say gut, we mean instinct, right? Where wherever that is, whatever that comes from, I always want people to train their brain to recognize what their instinct is telling them. Whether it's good or bad, it's not always good, right? It's kind of like the devil, an angel on your shoulders. But um for me, success, um, you know, when we're talking about kind of instinct and gut, is about alignment versus outcome. So if you're feeling that the work you're making, the life that you're living, and the values that you care about are moving in the same direction, then even if the results are non-existent, or the res the validation, the results, and the kind of the external definition of success is non-existent or it's slow or it's uneven, um it's measured less by the money or recognition and more by whether the work still feels honest, aligned, and whether you'd keep doing it without the external metrics and the external validation and the success that the the the orthodox definition of success that might come with it, and whether it continues to kind of deepen your curiosity rather rather than drain it. For me, that's that's an element of success. But in practical terms, success shows up as continuity, right? You're still making the work years later, we're still doing what you love. You've you've been able to do what you love continuously for many, many years, and you're still having the opportunities to do that and to evolve your voice, whatever that might be, it doesn't have to be photography, of course, it could be in business, could be in your job, could be with your family, and you're still willing to take risks, change direction, let projects grow at their own pace. Um so that, and then this comes to this word purpose. So if something gives you purpose and keeps you engaged, and people talk about this thing called flow state, but it's so true. Like, if you're able to recognize the things in your life that give you flow state, and then you can do more of that, just dive into it, like do that thing as much as possible. That for me is success. If you're able to build a life that allows you to do that all the time in a perfect world, but as much as possible, and maybe year on year, more and more and more, then surely that's definitely success. And it goes back to the first question about happiness. Um, that's going to make you more happy, more fulfilled, more purposeful, and give you better work. And those external metrics and that idea of success is downstream of that. So you can have it all, right? You've just, it's got to come from inside first. It's got to have alignment, honesty, flow state, um, contribution, giving back. So if you can contribute meaningfully, that's success, right? Regardless of how visible it is. So all of this can be combined with um the validation side of success, the recognition, financial gain, obviously, money is important to kind of survive as well as to prosper. Um, reverence, giving back, and and and all of that, or the rest of it, then if you get that that's downstream of what I talked about before in terms of alignment, um, flow state, purpose, then you've hit the jackpot, right? You're not only successful, you're happy. Anyway, so that's successful for me. Um so yeah, instinct, instinct, gut. Um, I mean, I'm sometimes rebellious. I trust my gut all the time. Now, I'm not saying it works for me all the time, but I'm an instinctive guy. If I feel like something, I want to go and do something, and it's I feel like it's right for me, whoever it's affecting. Um uh I feel like it's something I'm gonna enjoy, gonna get meaning and purpose from it. Um, maybe it's even something that will help me give back to someone else. In an ideal world, it will make some money. Um if that all aligns and I feel that alignment in my gut, then I'm gonna do it. I'm not gonna say it's gonna work, but I'm gonna do it. And most, most often, more often than not, it has worked. Um, if we're talking about the definition of success that I just talked about. Now, when we talk about the other definitions of success, my parents' definition of success, maybe your parents' definition of success, um, Western society's definition of success, basically, you've got to have a job that sounds good, you've got to earn above average income, and then you've got to go and tell all your friends and family about it. No, I like that's that's not gonna work for me. And my instinct does not lead to that type of success for me. So call that what you call that what you will. Um and sometimes, sometimes like when things do fail, it's usually not down to my instinct, it's usually down to my brain. Either I'm not clever enough to to realize its potential, or I'm over, or the opposite, I'm just overanalyzing and overthinking and ignoring intuition. Um, and I think a lot of um, I mean, some examples, and now I'll answer your question because you asked for examples. Moving countries twice, um, moving home is bad enough, but moving countries uh both based on instinct. Um instinct towards opportunities that were presented. Um, adopting more animals than I can remember, or fostering and adopting animals. We have four dogs in a house, and it's four and a half. We have a stray that we look after, but it's a lot. And now we're kind of like you you lose a lot of, it's just like, I mean, it's not just like having kids, it's a little easier than having kids in terms of commitment-wise, but we're committed to our animals. And so, like, that's kind of put us in a in a box, and we only have so many options if we really care about these animals. So that was an instant instinct, like we just want to. There's just no, there's just no thinking. When an animal needs us, we that's what we care about, and we go and look after it as much as we can. Um, this studio, this studio doesn't make any money. Uh, don't care. Uh, the cafe we sat on top of, like, um obviously I'm not gonna share the financials, it does all right, but it's not like it's not the moment where it's gonna take over the world. But I love it. Like I it it gives me and the people that we employ and the customers, the loyal customers, the the returning customers keep coming back, and everyone we impact. Yes, every now and then we get a bad experience and bad reviews and stuff, but most of the time it gives me so much fulfillment and so much joy. Um, having this thing that I created and being able to share that thing with other people. That was all instinct. It was like, I've been dreaming of this for ages. I don't even know what the plan is. I I see an opportunity, something came up, I'm just gonna go do it. I know I can make it work um whenever that might be. So that was it. This podcast, this was instinct. This was a this was a post-COVID thing. It was like um really takes taking photography a lot more seriously, more in a professional sense, and just wondered like where the community was, and I wanted to kind of reach out and just talk to other photographers. I didn't think about it, I just started talking. I just picked up the microphone and started talking. And then even now I don't have much of a strategy behind it. I shy away from kind of the commercialization of it as much as possible. I don't want this to be a podcast that is full of ads and just always selling you guys something and always plugging something. But seriously, join the book club. Um, it's so I like this is instinct. This is the way I wanna, this is the way I wanted to connect with people. This was the way I felt was I was going to serve myself and an audience as best as possible. And um, yeah, I've loved, loved pretty much every minute of it. It has its tough periods, of course, but um this was all instinct. And and then, of course, when we actually get to photography, I mean it's all instinct. Uh yeah, of course, like we're impacted by environmental circumstances and inspirations and people we talk to and just everything we soak up and consume in this world of consumption, but um I don't, I still don't look at photography as in any business sense. Maybe I should. So I don't really kind of like um obviously I do business activities within photography, but I don't perceive it like that. I just I I don't allocate time to pick up a camera, I don't allocate time to edit, I don't allocate time to pitch, I don't allocate time to think about how I'm going to evolve as a photographer. I just it's all instinctive. Um, and I pick up little things along the way, obviously, and I think, oh, I might try that next time, or I might add that into my notebook to work on on the next project, blah, blah, blah. But most of the time it's like if I look at some of my old images and the way I've evolved as a photographer, there's no good or bad there. It's just instinct each day as we as we move forward and kind of find that voice and develop style and and go into the nooks and crannies of where we want to be in the photographic world and what really sparks curiosity and happiness with it within the photography industry for us. So all of that's instinctive. I don't really think about it too much. There is an argument, maybe I should think about it more, but I'm I'm happy with where everything is at the moment. It's a very, very slow, arduous journey for me. As I know it is for many photographers out there, probably for a lot of you listening or watching this. As I know, and and the comfort I get through the podcast and speaking to many, many photographers is that they they've gone through the same thing or still going through the same thing. So I'm okay with that now. Um, and so a lot of a less is more analytical, less is more thought out, more, even more so instinctive these days. Um and the question about synchronicity, which was um, did synchronicity play a role where everything seemed to align perfectly? Yeah, I think I've kind of answered that already. Yes, definitely. Um, I think that really comes in with recognizing opportunities. So I've one of my strengths, I believe, is always being able to recognize good opportunities. Are opportunities worth pursuing? Sometimes they don't work out, but um I always want to try and say yes to things. And that comes back to how you philosophize life. But um, I think the synchronicity things, like you A, you've got to be aware of what your gut's telling you, and you've got to be instinctive in terms of recognizing those opportunities where everything comes together. Go, that's it, just feels right, right time, right place, right circumstances, right people. Let's go and do it. Um, so you kind of got to read energy, you gotta read timing, and most importantly, you've got to read that intuition, that instinct. Um, then I think a lot of people confuse or conflate at least instinct with impulse. Um, you know, wisdom and avoidance. It's easy to be wise after an event. Um, but yeah, I think where instinct sometimes has let me down is where I've misread it as impulse. And this this comes back to um whether it's I don't know, spending habits, eating, um, used to be a lot of drinking. Um and just like impulsive behavior, not in a really bad way, just maybe not a not conducive to positive health. Um, so I think like it's easy for us to say, oh, well, you know, my gut's telling me to have another drink. Well, is it? Probably not. My gut's telling me to buy another lens. Um, yeah, probably not. Um, just have a think about it. And if your gut is still telling you that in a few months, and if you've got a your gut can also give you some more rational explanations and answers um when you sit in front of a spreadsheet or you kind of break down the reasons behind it. So it's difficult and there's a there's a fine line, but it it does come down to being able to be very aware of of when the when it's instinct and when it's impulse. So um yeah, don't know if that helps. Okay, next question from Patty Schutz. What has been the hardest part of your photography journey? Oh goodness me. Um there's so much. Um I think one thing that's been really difficult is building an audience that cares. And I I'm kind of hot off the back of that that episode I did, the Moments of Mood episode, about um why no one cares about your photography. And that was a really important episode for me because it really does resonate in so many ways. And I had to think very, very hard about how I wanted to spin that and how I wanted to potentially provide so-called answers or suggestions. But for me, like building an audience, whether it's 10 people or 10 million that actually care and so very aligned with who you are and what you want to do and what you want to say more importantly, whether that's through images or through the written word, that's been really difficult. And it and and although quite fulfilling, it's been extremely frustrating at times. And in the process, kind of finding out who better who I am as an artist. Yeah, so I think that has been a big challenge for me. And I I, you know, if you look at my Instagram, um that that has been a specific type of audience that is that the majority of which nowadays is not aligned with who I am. It's kind of like a very old audience. And so I've been um been going through a process of, I guess, culling or kind of just separating myself from those people that um don't want to engage with me anymore, which is absolutely fine. I only want a thousand people that not even I don't really care about the number of people, I just want people, an audience who who want to share this with me and think similar to me, it's you know, it's a very tribal kind of desire, right? It's we want to feel like that belonging, we want to feel understood, and I'm no different. And so when when a lot of the time my messages don't land or um or not certainly didn't used to, it's frustrating because you're like, what where's the disconnect? And so building an audience, not just any audience, uh, people really need to think about this carefully. And I wish someone had told me this five years ago. Um, but building an audience that actually cares and that actually is aligned with other peers like myself who think similarly, differently enough where we can have discussions, um, but similarly enough to kind of come and join the space with me and we can see what happens, where it goes. And that's really where kind of like the beauty of connections lies. So I think it's a really difficult thing to do. And I do, I don't necessarily teach people to do that um because I'm still I'm still kind of figuring it out for myself. I think I've I I've I've done enough to kind of know, okay, what works, what doesn't work, and where kind of where my audience sits. But um, that has definitely been a good journey, but it's been really, really, really difficult for me. Um, but I definitely have some advice on that, um, which maybe for another episode. I definitely have an advice for that. I've talked about it a lot in my new mentorship training materials. Uh, another plug. Uh, new training materials for my mentorship, which will be coming out probably the end of January, uh, because this is such a huge part of having um of positioning yourself, having some presence with your voice and then positioning that voice within an aligned market, not just a financial market, an aligned market in terms of audience, right? Who who are you gonna get the most reverence from? Who are you gonna get the most interaction and connection from? And it's really difficult to find that. Everyone, everyone has an audience, it's just a matter about finding it. And so um, for me, that's been very difficult in terms of my photography journey. But um, the other thing I would say has been quite difficult is uh understanding who I am as an artist. So coming back to kind of that that voice aspect, that was a very, very difficult thing, as it is for everyone. And it's not clear cut. Um a lot of people teach it. And I I I I mentor it, I would say I teach it. Um, I I think I know how to kind of bring it out in people or at least make people think about it so that they can kind of figure it out themselves over time. It takes a long time. But that was a that was a difficult thing. It's so easy just to take photos. Everyone can do it these days, and you can learn how to do it in an hour. Um, and if you want to get really good, you can learn how to do it in a week. It's but but kind of having something to say with that and being obsessed with something in life where you can carry a camera with you and record that obsession is a real art form in itself. And um being able to then express that in your own way is not only just the the real beautiful part of photography, but it's um it's where it all is it's where all the meaning comes from. But it's difficult, it's difficult to do. So I spent years just kind of like, you know, just fumbling around in the dark, essentially. I thought I knew what I was doing, but I didn't. Um, so that was a very difficult kind of transition for me. But I always saw that as evolution. Um, and really learning, learning about photography in that aspect was difficult but and lengthy. But I think everyone needs to go through it if we're gonna create better art and give people better experiences in life. Okay, um, next question Abilia Tantry. At Abilia Tantry, does the photography influence your lifestyle and why? Yeah. I mean, everything. Photography, photography shapes everything for me. From the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed. And that's not, I don't always have a camera in my hand every day. I don't shoot that often. Um I would say a couple of times a week I'll I'll pick up the camera without really much intention. Um and obviously like projects are different to that, but just like in normal everyday life. But photography is never never out of my mind, really. I could be watching sport on TV and I'll be thinking about how it looks on the screen, how it's making me feel, how the director's cutting it, or um or I'll or I'll kind of something will spark my mind that's to do with photography, and I'll have to write it down or actually go and do it there and then um or I could be traveling like travel, right? Photography, I I'd love to take a photo of that, or I'd love to explore that little story more, but I don't have time. So I'll just write it down and see if one day I can go back to it, or um, you know, with a with an iPhone these days, it's wonderful, right? You probably'm probably taking a video or photo every day. Um, but thinking about it, like you know, make sure the lights go, you know, just in a photographic way. Um collaborations, you know, everything surrounding photography, like, oh, I really want to talk about that, or I really want to read about that. Photo books, books, they're all over my house. And I just want to be able to, even if it's just picking one up and seeing it and just reading something for five minutes, or just looking at uh an image sequence for five minutes, whatever it might be, like it shapes everything. When I go traveling, most of our holidays or non-work trips, we have a few a year, they're geared around, much to the dismay of my wife. They're geared around, they're not geared around photography, but they have photography in mind. Like I'm looking, I'm thinking about okay, where are we gonna go? Are we gonna get a little bit of rest? But rest. Like, I want to create some cool stuff or want to go and explore that part of the world or that type of culture or go and do that experience. Me and my wife, we're so keen on experiencing stuff. We don't have hotel, swimming pool, beach holidays. We will go and explore something, and because of that, there will be a multitude of opportunities to take photos. And so I'm don't tell my wife this, but pretty much every trip I'm thinking about how that might benefit me in a photography sense. Um, she's not stupid, she knows. Um, but we've got to make, we've got to kind of make it work for both of us. So yeah, I think it everything. Um, it's really no longer, I got to a point where it's no longer something I do. It's just how I see everything. You know, it's how you start seeing life, um, even when you're not shooting. And I don't have to, I used to be like, I have to photograph everything. I kind of wish I was a bit like that again, but I become more immersed in moments and experiences. And look, if I have a camera on hand, come take I'm shooting. But um I'm still seeing everything through a photographer's eyes. I don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing, but at least it keeps my brain in that in that pattern. Okay, next question. Andy at Andy Thompson underscore photographer. Any advice for someone brand new but totally in love with the craft? Well, get my course, uh, watch all my podcasts, um, sign up to my mentorship, join the book club, all of those. But I'm just joking. Um, I think the main thing is um you've gotta you've gotta stay, it's like being a child. You've gotta stay in love with the art for as long as possible without thinking about anything else. So if you just I don't know what you mean, you said you're brand new. Okay, so I'm assuming you don't know kind of the fundamentals of kind of um professional photography, but once you know how to work a camera and you understand light, the rest is downstream composition, moment, uh color grading, uh and then and then the the further kind of sequential skills um preparing, um, portfolio making, sequencing, voice, style, um bio lines, positioning lines, uh branding, all of that stuff. Like to protect your love for photography first. And so just go and shoot. And I know people talk about this all the time, but it's true. Like you've just you've got to forget or just don't get distracted with all of your YouTube tutorials, unless you don't know how a you need to use a function, or you have you are stuck in the field, or you're stuck in this shoot, wherever you're taking photos, then go and search for that specific thing online, figure it out, go back to shooting. You will learn more than any tutorial, any book, any course, any formal education by just going and making mistakes and going and learning and figuring out what you want to do with the camera and what your viewpoint is and what your perspective is. That would be really my only piece of advice. Um and then, of course, like I said earlier, like immerse yourself in the culture of photography. So things like photo clubs, book clubs, uh, podcasts, books, photo books, as well as normal photography, non-fiction books, um, other art forms like poetry, painting, go to museums, go to galleries. Just try it, just immerse yourself in it as much as you physically possible if you really do love it. And then you'll find out, okay, that's for me, that isn't for me, that's for me, that isn't for me. I know what I like, I know what I like to see, I know what I like to consume as a as a uh in terms of photography and photographs. I know who my heroes in the space are, I know who my inspirations are, I know what I like to listen to. Podcast, uh, I know what I like to read, I know how kind of what I like to photograph, what subject matters, how how to do them. That take that takes a long time. I'm not gonna lie to you, it takes a long time. But I promise you, if I'd started it with that kind of concept, I would have been a much better photographer much earlier. Um, so yeah, you hit me up if you want to, send, send me a message if you really kind of like um need help or need a little bit more direction with this, and maybe I can help you a little bit more because it's kind of like a kind of a wide question. Any advice for someone who's brand new but totally in love? Well, yeah, loads of advice. But I I I don't really know where you're at and what you love, what you don't love. Um lots of other questions I can fire back at you, but uh hopefully just go and shoot. Don't worry about anything else. Try not to get distracted with all of the other noise, just go and shoot. Okay, another question from Rudranch Nagy Photography. Uh is that right? Uh I will be the annoying person and ask you when I can be the guest on the podcast. Okay, yeah. If I had a dollar for every time someone's asked me this, um, I'd be a relatively rich man. But um, yeah, so I'm being a lot more discerning these days with, I mean, we've we've done a hundred and uh well, I I want to say 110 guest episodes plus many more of these moments and moods. So um I feel like now we're just starting. Like we've managed to figure out kind of like how I want this podcast to be, who I want, who I really want on. And so I'm aiming big and big and bigger and bigger and bigger. Um, I can only do that with your support. Like this, I'm not ever gonna ask you for money, of course, but the more you guys can share this podcast for me, give me audio, give me guest suggestions, put it in the hands of other get guests themselves, um, share it on socials, talk to people about it. That that's just gonna give me more legit legitimacy to reach out to bigger and better guests. So Rudranch, I'm sorry, I don't know you, but if you send me a pitch, I'll be happy. Like, really, like what I want the the biggest bang for buck for you guys as well as for me for each guest. So I want to make sure that they are the best guests in the way of caliber, experience, wisdom, and something else to offer the other than just like tips and tricks, right? And their story. I want someone to have like really good opinions and philosophical stances on how artists can be better artists, what art means to them, where the place is with certain artists in the art world, how to be a good um uh a good artist in the sense of making a living from it, or you know, just more than I want I want to get have guests who've got something to say, basically. And that makes my job a little bit easier, but it just means we can go deeper and we can understand a lot more about where our place is in this world, how we can be better photographers, better artists, how we can make more meaningful work and how we can connect better through our work as well as through the communities that can spring off from this. So um, yeah, they they kind of have to be a uh a well-known name. I mean, there's that I have to think of it a little bit in terms of business. Um, but if they're a well-known name, invariably they have done a lot and therefore they've got a lot to say and a lot to talk about and they've experienced a lot and therefore have wisdom. Wisdom in the photographic space, wisdom in the art world, and that's gonna be of value to all of us. So um feel free to send me a pitch. Um, is there something that you've got to say that's worth discussing? Then if there is, then I'll look at all the kind of the other the other values that I think should come with a guest, and yeah, we can we can chat. I'm I'm open, I'm open to anyone. Next question from Inlimbo Photo. Um, do you have photos you look back on and feel surprised by for any reason? Yes. Um, I do. Um surprise isn't always a good thing. Sometimes surprise, like, how did I take that? Um so they're not always good or bad. I do have I am revisiting older work um way more than I used to because before I'm like, oh I'm different. Uh you know, the the our best photo is always the the next one. Right. Best photo isn't always the previous one. And so I kind of used to take that to heart. And like once I did it, once I wrapped something, posted it, whether that's on website or in a just saved on my hard drive or on socials, just be like, or competitions, whatever. I don't really do competitions, but used to. Um, I'd be like, that's done. I don't want to revisit that anymore. But I think that's I don't think that's quite unhealthy. So I'm revisiting a lot of older work, and that's for multiple purposes, some for projects, some for we're gonna go a little bit more into the competition space now, just to get more critique. I think it's really important. Um, and so I'm revisiting a lot and I'm coming with a different mindset, different perspective. Obviously, I'm a different person than I was five, 10 years ago. And um, I'm surprised. I'm I'm often surprised at how technically proficient they are, but I'm also surprised at some of them just having such a lack of meaning or a lack of place in other photos that I might have taken at the time. So um I'm surprised at how good some of them still are and how how timeless some of them are that I can I can use them now and guaranteed in the future for for whatever I might need. So yeah, I'm I'm surprised all the time. Um as an as an artist, I I've evolved a lot, both aesthetically as well as metaphorically and figuratively. So I think I'm surprised at how fast I have evolved. And I kind of like feel a little bit nostalgic about that. I don't want to leave the old math photographer behind that did such good work, but it's just so different. So now I'm like, yeah, I don't think surprised all the time in that sense, but certainly surprised at the kind of level of difference and the level of evolution that I've I've I've achieved. And I'm I'm really happy with where it is, and I'm excited to see where it goes, right, in the next five to 10 years or whatever. Okay, next question from Anna Maria Surler. Um Anna Maria, good to hear from you. What would you like to re-experience because you didn't appreciate it fully the first time? Oh my goodness. This is right in the deep end. Um my first 40 years of life. Does that count? Uh I'm joking. I mean, there's an element of truth to that. Um, but I'm joking. I mean, there's there's there's a lot of I was very privileged to have a very modest and modest but um comfortable childhood. Um we've just had Christmas, and I'm recording this the day after Christmas, the 26th of December 2025, and had a lovely day yesterday, and but I remember like the the incredible Christmases I had as a child. I can't remember a bad Christmas. And I was very, very fortunate to have a family that loved me, family that gave me presents and just made the whole thing feel wonderful. And I had that for a very, very long time. So I think, you know, just because it's Christmas has just happened, it makes me think about, yeah, I'd like to go and re-experience some of those early Christmases. Even even into early adulthood, you know, my early 20s, where I'd still go home and my mum would have all of the home cooking and Christmas carols on, and we'd go and see family and friends that live near us, and definitely this familial vibe and atmosphere that was just technical to none. And I hope, I hope you guys had that type of Christmas this year. Um, so I think, yeah, some of those Christmases I like to go and revisit. Um, I mean the yeah, so many. I think I don't know. I I I always think about when I when I when I used to have incredible experiences, I always wanted to go back and try and recreate that experience. It could be like a great night out with friends. Oh, let's go out again next week. And you'd go out again next week, and it was just not the same, right? So, and there's a beauty in that, though, those experiences are singular and you can only experience that experience in that moment. It's like it's like clouds. I just relationship with clouds, obviously, my pilot years, but when you see a cloud, you are seeing that that is pure originality. There will never be a cloud exactly like that ever again. Same with experiences. Like, so I kind of if you mean re-experience as that's the that's the one and only or first one and only time you so you are like re-experiencing as is it if it's a new experience again, then yeah, I mean there's so many, so so many. Um I there's probably too many. I can't think of anything specific right now. Um, a lot of them have to do with the people around me. I don't think there's been many experiences. I mean, there's been a few kind of mind-blowing experiences, whether it's uh me on the top of a mountain by myself, or me experiencing northern lights by myself, or me diving underwater with manta rays by myself, or there's there's been a few kind of like experiences where I've experienced it by myself, and I've felt a different level of energy in in those types of experiences. And I don't want to re-experience those because they were so precious, they were so, so precious that only myself was experiencing that at that time, and I don't want to ruin that by re-experiencing it. But many experiences were with other people, with loved ones, with friends. And I think sometimes we get so dispersed in life, I want to go and re-experience those moments just sitting with friends whenever I want to, or going to going back to the happiest times of family life. Or, you know, there's so you know, I'm 43 years old, so I have many, many experiences. I mean, so fortunate to have traveled the world, met so many people, have had a wonderful upbringing, family that love me, and I could pick from a million experiences. Um, but I think, yeah, I think uh some of those travel experiences and cultural experiences that my curiosity have led me to have been something I want to go and re-experience. But I might bring other people with me. I might, because maybe I only experienced it with a stranger. I might want to bring so many times I've experienced something and I wanted my wife to be with me, or I've wanted my best friends to be with me because I knew it'd be even more fun. Um, so yeah, I I can't pick out anything specific. Um, hopefully I've answered your question with a couple of those kind of um vague examples, but yeah, I mean good question, really good question, re-experience because he didn't appreciate it. Oh, I missed that, but he didn't appreciate it for the first time. Um look, I think the first my my I mean childhood's great. We uh we just experience things and we don't know how to necessarily uh appreciate them or absorb them enough that we can um really understand the joy and and um really absorb the joy that we're feeling at the moment. We just we're just so in the moment, we're just experiencing and we don't really think about it because we don't have the context of longevity, we don't have the context of life, um the the the finite kind of meaning of life. So um I think you know I could pick any experience in my childhood, but even in my early adult days, I still was very much captured by thought. I was very much identified with my thought. I didn't really was not mindful of anything, um, which on one hand was would really allowed me to just live life and go with the flow and just gain experience after experience after experience. But it did mean that I would, you know, have these experiences, not really kind of sit in them and really, really appreciate them until after the event. And then I end up, like I said earlier, trying to recreate those events or those experiences and it just didn't quite happen. And which was a great kind of indicator of me not appreciating the experiences at the time. Now I'm a little bit more mindful of any experience, whether it's good or bad, and I'm able to sit in it a little bit more and just absorb it and appreciate a little bit more. So yeah, I'm sorry I can't like I haven't picked out, but there's just too many. There's there's just too many, and that's not regret at all. Very, very few things I regret because I believe that every little mistake, um setback or success or whatever it might be has a reason behind it. Most of it's just learning. Certainly, all the setbacks. Um, you know, I was I was looking at uh, I was reading uh a Yacko Willick um quote, and he always tells people when they've they complain or they they say, Oh, I've just had this massive setback and it's I've lost a load of money or I've got cancer, or you know, it's real kind of live setbacks. His first reaction is always good. And they're like, What do you mean good? It's a bad thing. Good because you can this is life teaching you a lesson. What are you going to learn from it? And guaranteed something better will come from this. Now, obviously, that's not always true, especially in the case of serious illness and of terminal illness, but um there are always opportunities to to learn and to be a better person from an experience. And we I think we all know that deep down. So whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, I'm always much better these days in my middle age to appreciate any experience, whether it's, like I said, a bad thing that I know is probably going to teach me something and able to respond to it rather than react to it, or a good thing where I'm able to appreciate it more and to just be in that moment, be in that experience. I'm not saying I got my shit together and all of that, but certainly my early years and the irony is when you're uh when you're young, healthy, happy, so many opportunities knocking at your door, you just got to go and get them and go and put yourself out there. Um, you don't necessarily appreciate those experiences as much as you do when you get older, when you have a few more kind of like difficulties in life, a few more challenges, more responsibilities, more, more, more health implications, maybe more, more career implications, whatever it might be. It's a little bit more difficult to kind of sit in those experiences and appreciate them. But look, I hope I digress again. Hopefully, I've answered your question, Anna Maria's great question. Thank you. Okay, we've got last couple of questions here. So, rad underscore glow, do you have any tips to become better? Uh yes. Lots. You just have to come and get mentorship with me. Um, I'm not gonna like I've mentioned that previously on the previous question, how to become better at photography. Um, it all comes down to going out and shooting, right? A lot of the things you'll learn and the progress you'll make is downstream of just going out and practice. I don't like to say practice, because often you can go out and do like really constructive practice, but just again, be instinctive, go with your gut, go and just go and shoot, see what happens. Some amazing things will happen by just going out and photographing. Actually, uh, this brings me back to a uh a quote that Wesley Verhoover, who I just had on the podcast, talks about um the difference between beginning and starting. And if you're, I don't know, um, it doesn't say, I don't know if you're at the start of your journey or if you've been doing it for a while and you're struggling, just kind of making inroads and becoming better. But um, the this concept of beginning rather than starting, everyone can start something. They can read a million books and they can say they're gonna start the diet on Monday, but actually beginning and actually doing it over consistently over time, and actually going out, putting feet on the ground, picking up your camera, doing it day in, day out. When you maybe you don't really want to or you're not making progress. If you're just wanting to start, don't start, begin. And um, the best way to begin is to get off your phone, pick up the camera, leave your house, just see what happens. You don't have to think about it. Um, so yeah, I I think sometimes we can think too much. Sometimes we can kind of try and get all the advice and read all the tips and do all of this that we can try and consume. Most of it just comes down to the best artists out there, best photographers I've ever spoken to and seen or followed. They have just gone and done it with no caveats. They've just gone and done it. And that's the best way of learning and being better. If you're struggling with something, you do it until you fix it. So photography is no different. Um, it's not rocket science. Okay. Um, Maya Collins asks, who are your guests going to be in 2026? And can we add suggestions or requests? I can't tell you who the guests are going to be in 2026. Not because I don't want to tell you, but because I haven't got a list yet. Um, I have many pending guests who I'm trying to fix confirmations with and dates. I often don't have a plan past a month in advance just because I travel a lot and I don't like to record podcasts or commit, should I say, to podcasts while I'm traveling? I like to do it here in the studio. I like to kind of bash four or five out within a week or within a couple of weeks. Um, so I kind of gear up to that. So the next recording kind of batch will be the end of January, um, beginning of February, where I'm kind of hopefully finalizing a few guests. But kind of this leads me on to what you guys want. Would you rather? Usually I don't tell the guest, tell you guys who the guest is until we release the episode. Would you rather I give you a heads up as to who the guest is going to be or even guests are going to be over the next few weeks? Um, if if you would, I think it might be a good idea. That way you can kind of do a little bit of a uh of research, even just five minutes to check out with the photographers if you don't know them. Um that means I could I spend less time on the podcast kind of doing the groundwork as to who these people are and what they've done, which I absolutely don't mind doing. Um, but I don't know. I don't know if that would be of any value to you guys. But if if so, please let me know. Um so yeah, hopefully we I I earlier I mentioned asked answered that question about a guest on my show, but hopefully um I will be getting bigger and better. I mean, bigger and better, define that, but you know, more kind of established, reputable, well-known artists that are able to that really have something to say and that we can really um give you guys as much value as possible from people who've been there, done it, and have a lot of wisdom to share. So hopefully um that's the plan. And they may not always be photographers, right? I've got a few lined up that aren't photographers. Uh so hopefully they come through, but we'll see. Um that's it, guys. I I've talked for for long enough. I I I I don't know if these are of any value to you. I I often find myself sat here kind of ruminating over the answers and then digressing. Um it's weird because it's not in an interview setting. So if I have someone there, I'm usually a little bit more direct, but I'm just talking to a camera, right? And and a screen. But hopefully this helps. It's been fun. It's great to try and articulate some of these like in real time. So uh thank you for all your questions. Thank you for following. Thank you for listening. Here's to a wonderful 2026 for everyone. I hope to see you um in the book club community or in the other communities I run, as well as here in the comment section or anywhere in this beautiful world that we call photography and art. And um, yeah, I wish you guys all the best. Thank you so much for participating and for your support over the last however long it may have been. Um, and until next time, until the next episode, I wish you all the best and see you there. Happy shooting.

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Matt Jacob

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