Latest / f/22 - Photographer Interviews by VSCO / S2.E9 – Take More Bad Photos: Joe Greer on Film, Street, and Staying a Kid in the Candy Shop
Transcript
- VSCO Team: Lost a lot of followers, which is great. Clients started to hire me because they wanted that street photography look. That can be Something that felt real and now we love this the way that you shoot the streets. Can you do that on set with us? Can you do that with our products? I went out every day to make photographs and to share that online. And I had no work. Not even an email back, not even a yes, nothing for seven months. Wow. Seven months. Wow. Imagine. I'm eighty five, ninety, ninety five years old. Hopefully I'd make it that far down my life. And I'm sitting on my deathbed and I'm look back at my 50, 60 year career. Man, I'm glad I just took all those landscape photos and didn't diversify at all. Like, nope, that would that that keeps me up at night. That haunts me. Well, hello, and welcome back to F22. I am joined here in Nashville, Tennessee by Joe Greer and Greg Luzi. And we are delighted to have you on the show. Stoked to be here, especially being in my backyard of Nashville, Tennessee. Yeah. Let's go. Tennessee represent. We are Excited to have Joe. We have known Joe personally for quite a long time. Yeah. Actually, spent some time working together at Visco. If you don't know Joe, I would highly recommend you check out his work. He has produced multiple books. He has a new one coming out, which we're going to talking about around India. ⁓ you've seen him in Leica, you've seen him in Banner Running, you've seen him in Gatorade. There's so many amazing work that he has produced commercially. And then he also creates amazing personal work that we're gonna also be talking about too. So we're really happy to have you on board here, Joe. I'm so stoked to yeah, chat about photography and the all things that I love. Yeah. Thanks for having me, guys. Let's go. Yeah, maybe just to get us started. Yeah, you know, tell us the kind of work you do. I mean, Greg went over it a little bit, but love to hear it from your mouth. And then also just how'd you get started? How'd you get into all this? Yeah. Like I said, I'm I've been living in Franklin, Tennessee for about six years now by way of New York. And then by way of Portland, Oregon, than by way of Colorado. but ⁓ yeah, so I've been in N Nashville for a while with my wife and my son. I I feel like I do a lot of commercial photography that kind of pays the bills. So brands will find me online or via my website, or maybe a a producer or creative director follows me and he reps a bunch of clients and will shoot me a DM or or send me an email. So that's kinda how what I do and how I make money essentially. But then also I have I'm very passionate about the personal work that I make. So that's kind of the the quick answer to that. Well, man, I got started back in twenty eleven. I was living in Spokane, Washington. I was going to Bible college and my Instagram came out and I would see a bunch of people ⁓ share photos of Facebook via Instagram and I had an Android, which is crazy at the time. I think I did at that time too. I'm pretty sure we all did back in twenty ten, twenty eleven. But I had an Android and ⁓ you could only get on this Instagram app thing with an iPhone. So I was a broke college student and so I saved up for about a month to be able to go buy an iPhone for and I got that, download the app just so that I could share photos of Facebook so my family could see what's going on on the other side of the country. They lived in Florida, I was in Washington State. And but then that just kinda quickly turns to a ni a very exhilarating Hobby where I was a Florida boy, never seen the mountains, never seen snow, never seen fall colors. I was thrown into the absolutely gorgeous landscape of the Pacific Northwest. And when I didn't have class or didn't have work, and I was out with my iPhone and a handful of buddies who we all kind of had this same passion and fire to just go take photos on our iPhone. Now that was a really wild time as I know you guys were around at that time, especially as And then I started seeing this hashtag ViscoCam. And I we were all like, What is that? And so then we found out, ⁓ it's an app to edit. And so we downloaded that and we were in there. I remember going on these sunrise trips up in the mountains and then coming back to our apartment and just sitting on the couch for hours trying to edit our photos in Visco and trying to learn okay, what is what does contrast mean? ⁓ okay, that's what that does. Or what is that what does highlights mean? Or okay, ⁓ an exposure does this. And ⁓ my God, wow, look at this, look at the colors of this ⁓ five. It was a really wild pure special time that I look back on with just great fondness and great I don't know I just it was just a simple time. There was no distraction of anything else. So I and all all photography was to me at that time was just a hobby. But year after year throughout my my time at Bible college from 2011 to 2014, this photography hobby just became more and more serious and I became more and more obsessed with it. And again no camera, no digital camera, no film camera. I just had my iPhone and then I upgrade to the five, the five S and the six and so on and so forth. But and then that I started to gain a little bit of a following and ⁓ that led to a really interesting phase of my life where I'm like, d this is crazy that people are caring about what I me snapping photos on my iPhone and me literally having no idea what I'm doing. But I'm just trying to document and photograph the Pacific Northwest and learn and grow. And I it was just as we were all sponges at that season because we didn't know anything. And sometimes I feel like I still don't know anything. That's just how it goes, I guess. But and then I graduated in 2014 and I had a buddy who was working at Visco at the time and he messaged me and said, hey, there's some spots open for curators in their Colorado Colorado Springs office. You should apply. And I'm like, I have a Bible degree for preaching. There's no way I'm going to get a job at Visco. But I applied anyways. I was working at Apple, ⁓ which was a really fun job, especially this photography thing started because of an iPhone for me. And so I applied and ⁓ somehow I got an interview and I got more interviews and made it to the final int where they offered me a job and ⁓ it's just worked my way into getting hired. Greg was my superior and my boss and I moved down to I packed up my life and moved down to Colorado and It was one of the most I said this on other interviews and podcasts, and I say this proudly, but being a self-taught photographer and not going the traditional route of photo school or art school, I worked at Visco for about a a short, unfortunately, a short 10-month window. And it was the most transformative 10 month period of my entire life. I came in week one. ⁓ Greg's amazing sister, Christina, ⁓ was kind of like my direct ⁓ boss. And she was giving me photography homework to go study the work of Alex Webb and William Egleston. And I'm like These guys are famous. There's no way that these pictures are because again, my my understanding in reality of photography was very narrow, very shallow, built on a r a very unstable foundation of just Instagram, l epic landscape, PNW vibe, and that was my whole universe. And so I came in and it was just absolutely my foundation was obliterated within the first day or so. Which was exactly what I needed to happen. And I was so open to that experience as well. So having this homework of studying some of the the greats ⁓ in photography was absolutely paramount in my growth as a photographer and my understanding of of this medium of photography. Because I thought it was just felt so narrow at that time. And I think that's interesting that you bring that up because I think I I think from the get go you had extreme natural talent, but you put on a lot of work to build upon that and then you put the effort to study and really understand what makes a good photograph and learn that. I it feels in a lot of the conversations that I have, everything is around what's new and the equipment and all this, but there's thanks. But to be able to look back and study the greats and what makes a good photograph, I think you you don't always get the credit for putting in that time. No, I appreciate the thank you. And but I think the time too is at that time, I don't know how it is now with Visco, but being a curator back then in front of a screen staring at tens of thousands of photos a day and sifting through that and trying to find those good ones, those diamond in the roughs of amass all the bad ones, quote unquote. And that really helped sharpen my eye. Okay, what am I looking for here? Right. And I had an incredible team in Jared and Christina and Mike and John to help guide me of okay, this is because right, so much of photography is is subjective. And so to kind of ⁓ here are things that were pulling at me emotionally in this I was just seeing so many photos i every day for 10 months. Yeah. And we had incredible feedback. And there was just a beautiful flow and system during that season. And a another opportunity came for me. And I was about to get married. I got married and moved to Portland, Oregon. And so that's why my time at at Visco was so short. But I say this like it was that was my art school. That was my photo school. That I would not be where I'm at in my life, in my career. And I'm genuinely mean this if I had not gotten hired at Visco and had that season. If I just kind of Visco didn't exist and I kept working at Apple and maybe I met my wife, maybe I didn't, I don't think I would be where I'm at. That moment in my life from twenty fourteen August to April of twenty fifteen, it was the most transformative ten month window in my photography career and I owe a lot to Visco for that. I want to hit the pause button because I want to hear the rest of your journey. But I'm curious, ⁓ people listening to this may feel like, Well, that's great, but how right Visco's not hiring a curator right now, so what do I do? Do you have any advice for how somebody now could Yeah. I love Get a similar education for themselves. What does that look like? Yeah, I would say thankfully there's a lot of resources now out on YouTube and other platforms, but I would spend a lot of time reviewing work and investing in collecting photo books. I think a photo books is a big part of what I do and what I'm obsessed with, studying the work of both current modern photographers, but also some of the greats that have gone before us and really understanding the photo history. Like where did this as a primarily a street photographer, like how does street photography even begin? Okay, you wanna you're gonna want to go back to Henry Cartier Brisson. Man, what made Henry Cartier Brisson in the twenties want to go take photos of strangers in Paris? What he's the one that started it all. Yeah. And so I think going back there and for me a a very transformative documentary that I saw a month or two before I started this goes ⁓ finding Vivian Meyer. ⁓ the documentary about the incredible talented photographer Anne Nanny. ⁓ Vivian Meyer, her story is wildly inspiring, but also Tragic that she went her whole life without ever really seeing any of her pictures. And ⁓ she became really famous after she passed, and that's all I'll say about that. But investing in watching documentaries as well as collecting photo books, I think that is one of the most important investments you can make is collecting the work of other photographers. But also too, like in the modern culture that we are, like collecting a physical product that is outside of your phone and outside of your devices and your T V screen. And having that on your shelf or on your coffee table, that in any moment of your day, you can go pull that physical book and put it in your lap and have a cup of coffee and go through that and just see what how that work and hits you is I love that. So important. And then you can return to it again and again and again. So I think investing in that is huge. You get two photo books. ⁓ my gosh. What do you choose? ⁓ man. ⁓ my goodness. That is insane. That's almost an impossible question. For somebody else, I think we have the answer for one of them. We should talk about that in a minute. I don't know. Of a specific book to s per se, but I will say it has to be a photo book from Joel Merowitz. Yep. He is probably my greatest source of inspiration as and I've molded a lot of my career off of the way that he goes about it. But then I would have to say the other one would be ⁓ Robert Frank's The Americans, which is argued as one of the greatest photo books ever produced. Again, Robert Frank in the 50s, Swiss photographer road tripping around. ⁓ the United States. What why are you photographing these things? Things that I would love to photograph. It's like what how was he viewing it? It's just it's wild that someone like him in the fifties would just drive around the country with his camera and yeah, take photos. That's something that I would do right now. So it's it's it's wild. But yeah, I think those two. Someone jo something from Joel Merowitz and then ⁓ Robert Frank. But also Vivian Meyer, her work ⁓ and the books that they've produced since she's passed are are pretty remarkable. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. ⁓ there's so much more I want I would love to talk about photo books, but I want to hear like how'd you get from Yeah. Curator at Visco to shooting for Leica and all these brands and you're making photo books and I I'd love to hear like I mean that's honestly the last time I really connected with you was at Visco. So I kinda wanna know. What was that? And how did Yeah. How you become so successful. What does that look like? How'd you how'd you get to that? Yeah. And that that is such a that could be a very deep question. I think a lot of it goes back to my childhood and having experienced a lot of trauma and ⁓ not having a really stable home situation. I think there was a lot of I just had a lot of motivation to make something successful out of my life. Like I wasn't gonna take no for an answer. I was gonna work extremely hard. I was gonna do whatever it took to get and to achieve and to reach my dreams. And I think that stems from a lot of inconsistency and a lot of just unfortunate things that have happened to me in my childhood that just allowed me to be very hungry for what I wanted. And what I wanted was to be able to make photos my career. So I left this go at I I worked as a a creative director at a church out in Portland, Oregon. Right around the time I got married. And it was just a beautiful transition, a beautiful season for me and my wife, Maddie. And I was in Portland for about two years and unexpectedly I was working there and it was great and it was incredible. I learned a lot. But I think for me, the dream and the goal was always to go full time freelance. But I had absolutely no clue how to make that happen. So was like, okay, it's just gonna happen eventually. We'll see. And I I was getting a very small random photo jobs v through Instagram here and there, not enough to make the jump to full time freelance. Then unexpectedly, ⁓ right after Thanksgiving in twenty sixteen, ⁓ the church were just kind of making cuts and cutting down on on on things. And ⁓ what my position was unfortunately one of the first ones to go. And so I got let go unexpectedly, rough time right before the holidays, right before Christmas. And so That was absolutely terrifying to know I had no fallback. I was like, man, do I call up Greg? They had just moved to O Oakland at the time. I was like, yo, are you guys can I come back? And that was an honest conversation. I don't think I've ever told you that. But I was like, do I do that? And I was just like, All right, this is I was always scared to make that jump to full time freelance, but maybe this was my sign. Yeah. To to just go for it. And so I was like, All right, I positioned myself. I made a website. I tried to collect all of my work to put it up there. I kept I went out every day to make photographs and to share that online. And I had no work. Not even an email back, not even a yes, nothing for seven months. Wow. Seven months. Wow. That summer of twenty seventeen, ⁓ late spring, we were like, Do we move to LA? Do we move to New York? We gotta make a change here. Portland isn't it for us. And ⁓ we had a lot of things pulling us to Los Angeles, but then at it we just woke up one morning like, What are we doing? Yeah. All of our family's back east. We have no one out here in in California or out in on the west coast. Let's let's go to New York and My sister was living an hour outside the city. We moved in Herwith for a month while we tried to find an apartment, found an apartment, and then everything just the floodgates just started opening. I started I was out shooting on the streets every day. And ⁓ were you shooting street in Portland or was New York kind of the unlock for that? I I did start in Portland, but it was all on my iPhone. It's always shooting street on my own iPhone in Portland. And that kind of what started that, but what started the bug was watching that Vivian Meyer documentary and then working at Visco and just seeing things differently and be Man, I'm really drawn to this street thing. Started collecting photo books and started diving down that path. But once I got to New York and back up but in twenty fifteen, on my wedding day, my wife gave me a film camera. That's what all ultimately I think started. That was like a of our wedding her wedding day gift to me was a canon AE one and a few rolls of film. I took that to Paris. I shot three rolls of film. That's a solid camera. Two and a half of those rolls of those three rolls were completely blank. I only had sixteen photos. I did that with an A E one too. It's so hard to load. I'm just From my honeymoon, I only had sixteen pictures of three rolls, which was just so heartbreaking, but a really good just mistake that I learned from and it was it was really great. And I bought a Leica ⁓ six, Els Right Route from time, we're getting ready to move to New York twenty seventeen. And moved to New York and just I I had never felt something like that before. The streets were alive. I felt inspired every day, every morning, every corner that I turned down was the most insane thing I've ever seen. And job opportunities came and it was more more on the influencing side of things. ⁓ but I was just whatever I had to do to be able to pay rent in New York City and to make this dream ⁓ happen is what happened. ⁓ but then month after month, year after year in New York, we were there for three years. I think it was just it was a snowball effect for me. And then it just kinda to get those jobs though, were you proactively hitting people up to get them? Yeah or okay. Okay. Yeah, I was I was going to events, going to parties, meeting up with other photographers, shooting as much as humanly possible, getting some really cool opportunities. To travel and then doing these jobs while I'm traveling, but also shooting on the side and shooting as much as I can. And then then I I got approached to be represented from a by my n still now current ⁓ agent and manager, Ernesto, in twenty eighteen, the summer of twenty eighteen. And that obviously took me to another level at his client base and he'd been in the industry for twenty years repping photographers and he saw something to me and my work and I want to represent you and for con for context. And and I know a lot of people, do you know what a rep does but just for those that might not, could you give a little context as to what role Ernesto plays for you? Yeah, and I'm sure it looks different maybe for other photographers, but for me specifically, Ernesto is a he I am I'll say this. I'm not really good at the business sides of things. Maybe people think that of me, but I am not business savvy whatsoever. I am a true artist, creative that's where my brain goes. I I meet a lot of other photographers who are very creative and talented but also very gifted with business. And unfortunately that's not my gift. And I sure I could probably learn and get better at it, but I just I'm so obsessed with the picture making process that Ernesto handles the business sides of things. I'm a yes man. Yeah. It's very hard for me to say no. And and unfortunately in those first few years of freelance prior to Ernesto, I just had gotten taken advantage of not knowing my worth, not knowing how to negotiate contracts and budgets. And just being a yes man, I just wanted to work my hardest and make sure that I made the client happy at all costs. Yeah. And unfortunately Brands took advantage of that and of me and Ernesto, lovely human. I'm so close with him. ⁓ he was my no man. He knew he knew he was in the industry, he knew these angles and how to have these conversations. It just made sure that AI got my worth and that I wasn't taken advantage of. And and that really helped me to just like, okay, I was like a weight lifted off my shoulders that I don't have to think and stress about the business side of things. And he kept me very much in loop on, okay, this job's coming in. So here's the budget. ⁓ he he's he takes twenty percent. of everything I make, which is just so worth the headache and the hassle that I could go to bed at night and knowing that things are taken care of and I don't have to work about work out these negotiations and you think about the shoot, not all of the other I just think about everything that happens when the camera is in my hand and I am very client facing and we have meetings and conversations here in their kind of creative direction or they want to know how I would approach this situation. So I truly get to handle and think about all things creative, all things photography. And I don't have to really stress out about anything with the business. I'm very grateful for And it's worth the twenty percent, one hundred percent. Got it. Yeah. Got it. Now one thing I'm curious about is you move to New York, you're shooting street. Your street work is phenomenal. Thank you. But generally street work doesn't pay the bills. And so I'm curious how you started, you mentioned you started getting some jobs that were maybe a little more influencer y. Yeah. But if you're all in on street photography in New York, how does that start transitioning to actually getting more of your commercial paid work? But you're still maintaining the integrity of your commercial paid work still feels like Joe Rear. Yeah. Absolutely it's it's not a lot of photographers are like shooting commercial stuff that they don't care about, wouldn't put in their portfolio, but they're like, well, I gotta make money. And then they go excuse me, then they go find their creative fulfillment doing their own personal work. How did that How what was that through point or how did that start happening where you were getting hired for your own vision? Yeah, that's a great question. For me, I was when I moved to New York and was really really caught the street photography bug, I had absolutely zero intention and no desire to try to make money from street photography. I was genuinely in love with that practice and that way of seeing the world. I thought it was just I was so infected by the streets and the dance of the streets in New York City. And how poetic it was to just be a part of the flow of 34th Street or Fifth Ave or Washington Square Park or a Wall Street, whatever it was. Yeah. I just wanted to be on the streets with my camera and see what that day brought me. Yeah. And to be able to make a picture. I had no intention of okay, I'm gonna try to sell this photo to this thing and get this much money for it, or I literally even wasn't also thinking of trying to make a trying to make a photo book at all. The goal was always to make photo books. As I started to become more obsessed with street photography and collecting photo books, I knew that was a path I wanted to go down. And ultimately my Mount Rushmore was like, okay, I want to be making photo books. And I look at the life of Steve McCurry and Joel Merowitz and Gary Winnegran and Vivi Meyer and all the greats that have gone before us and that are still there. And even some of the modern greats like my buddy Andre Wagner or Daniel Arnold and seeing them being peers of mine but also making photo books. It's just I wanted do that and I wanted to be that. ⁓ but for me I was just infected by this street photography bug. Yeah. And fortunately for me, sharing that work online was very important too. I built a base and an audience about landscape photography. And then I caught this street photography bug and like it. So I lost a lot of followers, which is great. But I also was like, I'm not gonna not share this street photography work because I love it so much. Right. Clients started to hire me Because they wanted and they wanted that street photography look. That can be Something that felt real and natural. We love this the way that you shoot the streets. Can you do that on set with us? Can you do that with our product? Can you do that? And then it that just kept happening and it just kept happening. And then I started then I had an incredibly diverse portfolio of people wanting me for the way that I saw the world. And it w I it just I don't know how it happened. It just freaking happened. It's just it's actually as you're saying this, it's certain things are adding up. So Joe recently taught a Visco freelance photographer workshop in LA in partnership with a Band of Runny. And one of the things that a lot of the attendees said, I don't know if you heard this, they were like, Joe doesn't shoot with the shot list. He just kinds of guns it. Yeah. But that's actually a little bit more of the mindset of a street photographer where you're flowing and you're interacting with the people and the models. Yeah. And so that kind of adds up. Where to some photographers, not having a shot list is literally the scariest thing. And for you, that's just natural. That's second. That's such a good point. And it honestly freaks some of my clients out. Yeah. What are we gonna get? What are we gonna get? I just I don't know how to explain it, but that's you made such a good point. And honestly, that's it. I think the practice and the rhythms that I have developed. As a street photographer, that like I'm not going out trying to make a specific type of street photo. Yeah. Because if you do that, there's a very good chance you're never going to get it because the streets are unpredictable. Right. Every day is different. They don't repeat themselves. That's why I'm so in love and infatuated with street photography, because all these photos that I have made, nobody else can go out and find those same people and put them in that same exact situation with the same light, the energy, how they're feeling that day, and make that exact composition. That moment is here and then it is gone forever and it will not repeat itself. So I'm never looking for a specific photo when I go out. So when I'm on set with a client, like I I say this to people, it may not make sense, but when I go on and it's time to work and it's ready to go, like I a a a switch flips and I'm on and at the end of the day, eight hours, ten hours, twelve hours, however long, I am wiped out. I'm so exhausted because I'm a hundred and fifty percent completely locked into this practice and this medium. And so I yeah, I definitely don't go with the shot list, I gotta get this. Obviously, the client has certain themes or they're looking for this kind of like ⁓ if we get something kinda like this, or they'll share some photos of mine. ⁓ my gosh, if we could get something like this. So there are elements like that, but for the most part, like where I'm ⁓ I love working it's based on okay, who are my models? What's the location? Is it are we shooting in the morning? Is it right are we in the studio? Are we not? What's the product? There's so many of those variables too that kinda go into it. My I do my homework, I make sure I know what the client wants, but also I've worked myself into a position where they really just trust my impulse. Right. And I have to be very long leash, which I'm very grateful for. Yeah. And I feel like the story that we're hearing so much here is the story of you finding yourself, finding your own style. Yeah. And you would never have gotten to that point as a Pacific Northwest landscape photographer. It took that journey to become this person as a street photographer who has this style that brands want. And yes, therefore you have permission to play that way. I think for somebody listening, it's not a formula that they can then apply to themselves. It you have to find yourself. You have to find your own voice, your own style, and become that the way that you did, which is hard. Yeah. You made a good point too, because it was a risk. Because back then in twenty sixteen, when I got that street photography bug, that was not a real popular thing on Instagram. But there were photographers who were obviously doing it, but that era was portraits, epic portraits, epic landscape portrait like that landscapes, that was the world. That was the universe. If you're around and you're listening and you were ticking you're on Instagram at that time, you understand what I'm talking. That and so whenever I posted a street photography, a third or a fourth of the engagement I would get if I posted some foggy mountain lake landscape. And I was like, Man, that's crazy. I'm gonna keep it up. I'm gonna keep sharing this, but like that's wild. How no one was like, ⁓ street photography, that's weird. That's That's sort of the impact. But I took a risk. Man, maybe this isn't as good. Created some questions like, man, does this suck? Or am I crazy? Or should I be? Should I just Go all in on the photoc the the landscape thing, but I was just so obsessed with seeing the world through a street photography lens. Yeah. Through my ⁓ six and shooting zone focus and shooting on film. It's a l strong language, but I was possessed by the streets and the way of seeing through Being on the streets and and encountering whatever they were gonna give me that day. It I took the risk to make that jump and d diversify my craft. I could have stuck, I will say I've met a lot of incredible landscape photographers back in the day that didn't take risk, that didn't try to transition to not to the streets, they could transition to anything, but they just stuck in that lane and almost all of them are not taking photos anymore. Wow. I wonder if that's and and I it's hard, you don't want to project things on people, but I wonder if that's because their motivation was external validation based on I post this full mountain and I get validated by that. Whereas I think for you intrinsically you were thinking what is what makes me feel alive? Yes. And I do fear in this day and age with all these photographers, we're so conditioned to think a good photograph is how many like counts there are. Absolutely. And I do think it messes with people's development, especially younger photographers. And so I think there's so much wisdom in saying, hey, it's okay. Play the social media game. There's a sense of marketing to that. But like where you're gonna learn is by looking at books, yeah of old people. Yeah. Where yeah. I'm going somewhere with this, I promise. Yeah. No, you're good. So you mentioned ⁓ Robert Frank's The Americans. Yeah. And I got that book a couple of years ago. ⁓ really spent some time with it. And y some of the images, they're amazing, but I if you were to post that on social media now, yeah, it would not do anything. Right. It's in the context and the story of all the other photos in that book and what it was at that time and what it meant and how different it was than everything else that was happening at that time. And it's it's hard to grasp what that would have felt like then, but It's also hard to you it still makes so many people feel something now. Yeah. And it's not some it's not single images that would just be bangers on social media. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm curious, you you have also, you mentioned your Mount Rushmore was to make books. You've made a books. You have a new book now. I want to hear about that. But also just w what was that process for you in in creating your own books? And do you feel like there's a difference between this the the shots that work on social media versus what works in a book? Yeah. I definitely don't think about sharing my work in that lens at all of like, ⁓ this would only work in a book or this would only work on Instagram. I just share photos that I like. And if people like them, sweet. If they don't, all good by me. I'm gonna keep shooting and I'm gonna keep sharing. And so that's really I've I really back in the day I was very meticulous and pretty straight I only shared certain things bec if it would be engaged well. But now I I've been on this in this game for so long and I wish I could be off social media, but unfortunately it's Become a big part of my business that I j I l genuinely just share photos that I'm very excited about. And I don't care how people engage with them or share them or like them at all. But the book thing, man, it just Yeah, tell us about your new book. Yeah, it happened in this whole like I said earlier, that is a massive goal of mine. It's just me making photo books and and I left New York City right at the time of COVID and moved to Nashville. I wasn't in no way looking to make a photo book about New York, but it was just this beautiful Chapter closing of my life. A very hard ch chapter two. Like I we weren't ready to say goodbye to New York, but circumstances made us relocate. And I'm I'm moved, I moved to Nashville unexpectedly in March, and I'm just like, the world's shut down. I got no friends in Nashville. I'm like, I this is also crazy. Side note. During the midst of COVID, street photography was one of the only mediums of art where we could not practice our art form. Right. Painters could still paint, singers could still sing, dancers could still dance. Musicians could still play their instruments, but we depended we depend on full streets and the energy of the streets, and that was gone. Yeah. And that was very challenging. So all I had to do was just look back at old work. I had over a hundred and fifty undeveloped roles from ⁓ shooting streets in New York. So I got all that developed and I just sat with three years of photographs and I'm like, okay, I think this is time to make a book. And so I made my little love letter to New York, as I say. It was titled NYC, I love you. And that was just a a a closing chapter of my life. And then fast forward now for the last seven years, eight years, I've been going to India. ⁓ I had the opportunity to do a job with Google in twenty eighteen in India. ⁓ and that's kind of what started this this project and this passion project of ⁓ India changed my life. It it it awoken something in me that was dormant or I had no idea existed. And so after that first two weeks in India, I made some friends there that were facilitating the trip in India and I stayed in touch and I'm like, I gotta get back to India as soon as possible. So I went back the following year in twenty nineteen. And after that trip, I was like, I'm coming back every year for as long as I can. Twenty twenty, COVID happened, that made it impossible. And then finally in twenty twenty three, early part of the year, I went back again to a different region, different part of the country. And then I went back again in twenty twenty five to a different part of the country and new cities. And that's how now I'm probably on a two year window. Every two years I'm gonna try to go back to India and just continue to to get to know the country and the people and the customs and to continue to make photographs there. But after this last trip in ⁓ 2025, I felt this body of work was complete. I had over probably twenty five thousand photos, ⁓ seventeen thousand photos of film. The rest were digital. The first earlier trips were digital. ⁓ I like a ⁓ ten. ⁓ I wasn't shooting as much film on those trips. And then it the last two trips of India I only exclusively shot film. And I just was looking back at all these photos and I just I felt like the time was ready to start these volumes. And so this first book is called J it's just India, volume one. I plan to return to India, like I said, for the rest of my life or for the very long, foreseeable future, and just to continue to build themes in different bodies of work there. I'm shooting ⁓ many different things when I'm there. So I was telling someone this yesterday, but I've got I've been shooting the Hasselblad X Pan, which is a panoramic film camera. And so I've been shooting that these last two trips, but only in black and white film. Which is diabolical. India is a very colorful, beautifully colorful, rich country. And so to remove that element is was very challenging. I mean very hard because I see in color, I compose in color. Color film photography makes me feel alive. But that's just a really fascinating project that someday it'll make a book. Or there's a book about the religious practices in India. I'm a very spiritual person and religious person and a devout a Christian, but being in a ⁓ predominantly Hindu country and watching them worship and watching them praise ⁓ the things that they're praising is is just very foreign to me. But also very there's some similar things, right? I worship in a totally different way. So to be there and to watch them ⁓ worship, I've been photographing them in a book title I have in the works of India's ⁓ The Art of Devotion. And so I have photos that didn't make this book that will belong in that book. And I have other photos that didn't belong in this book that will make another book down the road. So I'm just gonna continue to invest in that country and go there and build friendships and make photos. And who knows where the photos lie, but this first volume is just this is my introduction to this country. This is what I saw over seven years. These are the pictures that I made. ⁓ they're not all the most epic best pictures. I wanted I cared really I made sure, especially through the help of Greg and Greg's sister Christina, who helped help me build this sequence. I thought that was very important too. ⁓ Greg played a huge role in allowing this book to happen. But to making sure that I wasn't making emotional decisions when sequencing this book. Because I had my favorites, right? But I had to really kind of loosen my group my grip a little bit and to make sure that the best story was told over seven years. And having someone like Greg and Christina who were disconnected from it emotionally and came into it in a very objective way was so helpful for me to see Okay, ⁓ yeah, this actually works better here than this photo that I'm really attached to and had a very specific memory and emotion that triggered whenever time I see that picture, it just brings back a very fond, exciting moment. But maybe that's not best for the book. Maybe it doesn't flow well here. And you and Christina really helped me see things. And I think that's so valuable for any photographer that's making books or want to make books to bring in peers that you value and and their opinions that you value to allow them to see the work in a different light. Because as photographers, we're so attached to our pictures. Whether we Like it or And you should be. And you should be, right? ⁓ you should be. But that could also that could do the book a disservice. Yeah. And so it's really important to have other eyeballs on it that didn't go with you on those trips and that didn't invest the time and the money and the resources to make these pictures and didn't make the bad photos or the good ones. And I'm very happy about ⁓ the the final one hundred and fifty six photos that made this book. Working with incredibly talented designers out in California, ⁓ Alex and Mackenzie Tan, based from out of Mouthwash Studios. Shout out Mouthwash. ⁓ they designed this book. And so I'm really excited for the world to finally see this and it for it to be in people's hands and for me to go back and continue to get to another country and build relationships there. And ⁓ yeah, I'm very excited for it. You can pre order that book now on Joe's site. ⁓ one thing that I wanted to ask the process of curating this book was brutal. Yeah. was hard. And it was brutal because twenty five thousand twenty-five thousand. But your hit rate is crazy. Especially for shooting on film. Right? Most people you just have amazing photograph after amazing photograph. And what was so difficult is there was just so much we left so much on it was so hard. So what I would want to throw out actually someone asked me to ask is how do you have such a high quality hit rate. How do you have so many of your photos turn out good? And they were joking around. They're like, boy, if I shoot, you know, thirty-six shots on a roll of film, man, if I get four back. I I'd love to hear more about how you came into that. So you're everything you know your camera so well. Yeah. And you know that you're going to get that shot. That's a that's a very good question. And I think that first point too is I really know this camera, M6 MP like When I was there and I was shooting, one thing I really did technically, I'm not a real big techie kind of photographer. I'm I'm a very big feeler. That's I feel a scene, I feel a moment, I feel a composition. I'm not very mechanical and tactile with it. It's I don't know if that makes sense at all. But for me it was very important on that twenty twenty three, twenty twenty five trip to India that I s did not zone focus at all. I critical focused the entire time. Okay. Meaning I I lined up my rain finder every scene, every photo I took. I did not zone focus one time. And so that then that for me knew that was like, okay, I want to make sure that when I'm taking these pictures that they are in focus and that it is perfectly in line. Right. And so starting that in 2023, I got really good and really efficient at critical focusing quickly. And so things were happening. And and you look at my photo, and I'm sh I'm critical focusing at F four, F five, six. F eight, rarely F11, sometimes F28. I I and I you see a lot of beautiful separation in some of my photographs, especially some of the portraits. But when things were moving past me and scenes were coming towards me, man, I just knew exactly where I needed to be. And looking at those vertical lines on people's nose, the the bridge of the nose. So I just got it. My rhythm of it's like I'm gonna commit to to getting really good at critical focusing. And I will say this, I missed a lot of scenes because I wasn't fast enough. And I could have gotten it maybe it was zone focusing. But I was like, I don't wanna have that crutch. I wanna really get I really wanted to perfect critical focusing on the fly as as quick as I can and I think it really mm helped just committing to that. And then I do that in other scenes too, like whether I go to a carnival or a fair or something where there's a lot of people and a lot of movement. I still go down that's like I'm gonna critical focus all these and ⁓ lean on that crutches. So today you are largely doing critical focus. Okay. Quick sidebar. I I don't know if everybody's gonna know what zone focusing versus critical focus. Can you explain that? Yeah for people that don't know what that means. For a rangefinder system, ⁓ critical focusing is you have two ⁓ two square patches or rectangle patches that when you line them up, that it's it's perfectly in focus. That's what I would do every time. I would line up that those range finder patches. But but for zone focusing ⁓ on the lens here, ⁓ depending on your shutter speed and the the speed film that you're shooting, or even in digital, however you have your ISO set. ⁓ there'd be a ⁓ a patch of distance. So for me, mostly I like to camp when I do zone focus, I like to camp at F eight ⁓ at about five feet from my lens to roughly 30 feet almost infinity. So from five feet beyond my lens to infinity will be in focus. And so you just have this large block of space that will if you if you can Judge where five feet is from your camera, which is roughly two arm's lengths. ⁓ everything beyond that will be in focus. So who've never shot with a Leica, they they hear these terms and they they don't know what that means. And it seems so mysterious, but it's actually very simple. And you can do it with any camera that has a manual focus. Usually there is some kind of a distance. Yeah, there is. And it's in it's usually in meters or feet obviously being in the States, I go by feet, but I still use zone every now and then, but I just I enjoy critical focus too. I do like zone focusing at a lower aperture. So at like five six, F four, my my zone is like three feet. Yeah. So or f or five feet. And so I really gotta lock in and know my distancing. And then obviously I this hasn't been said, but I will say this in India and just in general with all my work, I take way more bad photos than I do good photos. I think that needs to be said. Yeah, I think my hit rate was so high in India because I Critical focus and I made sure that I'm not just wasting film here, that I'm when I'm taking a picture, I'm really getting it or I'm getting as close to possible as a perfect exposure as I can. But I also made a lot of bad photos in India. Things that didn't work, compositions compositions were off. Greg, you when we sat down and we looked at all those photos, you only saw the good ones. I didn't there was a probably a pile. There was a pile this big that was just horrible exposures, really bad compositions, shouldn't have taken the photo, things that just didn't work, or I just misfocused. And so there are way more Stack this high versus the stack here of the good ones that we saw. So that's actually in a lot of ways I think encouraging for a lot of the people, especially younger photographers who I think put a lot of pressure on themselves to bring fire right out of the gate. But part of the process is messing up a lot. And we were s talking about that last night. Some of us, especially if you're here and you're watching, you're shooting film, right? You just gotta take the picture. I think for so long I was crippled by the ideas like, okay, man, fam's film's expensive. It's even more expensive to get it developed. Right. Every photo you take is costing you money to get that that film process. And I was kind of crippled by that idea where I would only took the photo when I knew I was going to get it or the scene was slow enough for me to pull focus or to zone, or it's like, okay, I'm learning I and then I like, I'm I'm wasting time. I'm losing momentum here, or time is slipping me by. Just take the photo, Joe. Learn the zone focusing. Okay, you're gonna take 27 bad photos, but then eight of them, nine of them might be usable in some form. And then that ratio started to get more 50% and now it's 70. So it's all repetition. You gotta take the photo. Don't be scared to take a bad photo. And then when you get those 36 frames back, and you paid for those mistakes. Learn from them. Look at those 36 frames. ⁓ what works here? ⁓ you know what? I think I was two feet off. I think I I thought I was six feet out. It was four feet. Or man, I was actually two stops underexposed. I should be shooting overexposed more. Okay. Or maybe it was just, wow, that well, I don't even know what I saw in this scene. That was not as interesting as I thought. And so I think you you have that. That's what a gift to be able to look at your bad photos and to learn from them, take a mental note and move on to the next role. Yeah. But take the picture. Let it fly. That's my w that's my word of advice. Just do not be afraid to just rip through them. And Listen, I know film's expensive. I spend a lot of money buying film. I do not get film for free. I don't have a partnership with Kodak or with Cinestil. I pay for all my film. I pay for all my film to get processed and developed. I want you to know that I've invested yeah tens, maybe twenty thousand thirty so much money in film because I believe in the medium and I believe in the soul and the feeling that film provides me. And I believe in that. And I want my when I see the world, I want it to be on film. I do shoot digital commercially and some personal stuff, but All my personal stuff for the most part is on film. That's a whole nother question for another time. But if if I if you're shooting film, just please keep shooting and shoot often and don't be afraid to make mistakes. And when you do, ⁓ use that as an opportunity to grow and learn for the next photo. You're hitting on something that I actually wanted to ask later on, but I just want to go in on it. So we we've hit a few kind of pieces of advice, but I'm curious for somebody that's looking to you. We've met a few people actually who see you as a role model, as a somebody that they would love to be like. Do you have any advice for others that want to do the kind of work that you do or would love to be in a position like yours? How does somebody get there? Yeah, we've hit on it a a few times in certain themes, but I think a big one is just is is consistency. And that that's both in in photographing, making photos and getting out there and putting yourself in those positions. It doesn't have to be street. It could be ⁓ weddings, it could be portraits, it could be still life, it could be studio stuff, it could be products, it could be there's there's many different genres and avenues of photography. And that's what's so beautiful about this medium is that There's even looking around here, there are so many companies and things I had no idea existed. I don't even know what these companies are. Like I thought I had a pretty good pulse on th and things and I'm seeing yo, this community is so massive and so diverse and there's so much out there. There's so much like incredible platforms and and things to learn from, but also there's so many there's so much work to go around. And maybe as you're getting started, you may not feel like that, especially if you're not getting work. But for me it's you're not gonna get work if you're not consistent and you're not putting in the work. There's Yeah. It's very rare where a photographer goes viral and then all of a sudden they just have all this work left and right. And that that's just not how it works, unfortunately. And that's just not a a sexy answer. I'm here now, I've been doing this for almost 15 years. I've put in so much work to get to this stage of my life. And so you have to put in the work. There's no way around that. You gotta take the photos. You gotta invest in yourself. You gotta and by investing in yourself, that means buying the photo books, taking opportunities to learn and grow, taking the photo course online. living on YouTube, trying to see what other free resources are out there that can lead you to find inspiration. Another big thing is consistency in sharing online. Getting your work seen by others or just posting. I that's a I've talked to a lot of photographers where it's a fear of theirs and they have catalogs and terabytes of work that just are living on these these hard drives and they are not living out there in the real world. That's it's really hard to share your work sometimes. I go through that. But she just what's that? I think it's a famous quote or line on in the YouTube world, but just press publish. That's a thing, right? Just share it. Post it. You have no idea who's gonna see it, what buzz it's gonna create, who's gonna see it, and they're gonna be like, man, I really relate to this. They send you a DM, then you start a conversation, and maybe a brand sees it, or somebody who works for somebody. It's just yeah that you gotta share the work. And that's a big one. Another thing is, yeah, don't be afraid to make mistakes and to make bad photos. We just touched on that. I think that'll keep you from oppressing. The shutter button and ⁓ what else? ⁓ man, there's so much. ⁓ I think it's very important too photograph what you love. That's a big thing too, right? I was told early on in my career to photograph the thing that you want to make money from. And I tried that for a little bit and it just didn't work for me. And I was told that find your lane and stick in it. And then I was like, no, that cannot be the only way to do this. And I was like, I'm gonna photograph everything I love photographing. That's portraits, that's photos of my wife, that's landscapes, that's street photography. And it led me down this path to where now clients want me for the way that I see the world. Right. And I don't think that would have happened if I just stayed in one line. Photography is a massive highway. There are many lanes. And I think photography and the resources that we have now available to us allow us to be very good at many different lanes. And that's just what I've chosen to believe and to pursue. And then I'm just unf I whether you like it or not, I'm just not gonna take no for an answer. I'm just gonna photograph what I love. Imagine. I'm 85, 90, 95 years old. Hopefully I'd make it that far down my life. And I'm sitting on my deathbed and I'm look back at my 50, 60 year career. Man, I'm glad I just took all those landscape photos and didn't diversify at all. No. Like that would that that keeps me up at night. That haunts me to think that I only stuck in one genre. And you can, and if you do that, I'm not trying to bash you at all. I admire your consistency of staying in one lane. But for me, it's like this life is so beautiful, so messy, so complex, just so confusing at times. But also so remarkably beautiful that there's no off switch for photography. I think that's very important for photographers. I don't go home and just clock out. I go home and my son is playing and the sunset light is coming through my window and he's playing with his Woody Dollars, Buzz Lightyear. And I'm I d I grab my camera and I'm like, ⁓ my gosh, Oliver, stay there. Don't move. Or I'm trying to critical focus on a toddler, which is insane. So I actually go zone focused during those moments. But There's no off switch. I'm constantly seeing scenes, whether I have my camera or I don't, whether I take the picture or I don't. I'm studying a scene. Okay, why am I why is that keep catching my attention right now? Is it the light? Is it the emotion? Is the emo is it the the interaction of these humans? Is it the the absence of human? Is it just space? Is it what is it? So that's an opportunity to just take a mental picture and to learn from it and to store that away. I am constantly seeing life through four corners. And so just There's no off switch with photography. If you do turn that off, try to create some some things in your life to where that switch stays on forever. Because again, I d plan to never retire. There's no retirement in photography. As long as my eyes work, my hands are here and my f I can be mobile on my feet. That's why I take my health very seriously, because I want to be as mobile as possible. And as long as I don't lose my mind when I'm older, ⁓ I plan to be making photos until the day I die. And so I'm truly obsessed with this photography thing. And in I think also too, people ask me that a lot. I have rarely, if ever, experienced creative burnout. I think that's because I still feel like a kid in the candy shop when the camera is in my hand. Whatever that is for you, however you can feel alive with the camera in your hand, keep that, cultivate that, build that up. And that I think is what allowed me to just really still feel like a kid and I don't feel burnt out and I still love what I do. I'm honestly so grateful that I get to make a living for making pictures. That's pretty wild. ⁓ awesome is that. Yeah. Gosh. Hopefully that was helpful. But that's what I would say. I think that was extremely helpful and inspiring. Thank you. Thank you guys so much for having me. This has been amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here with us. If people want to see more of your work, obviously your Instagram. Greg mentioned your book on the website. What's your website? Where can people find this though? I appreciate it. Yeah, Instagram, you can find me there. My website's just IoE dot photography. I just had a massive website update. I uploaded a lot of my commercial work, a lot of my personal projects on there as well. photos that are not really on Instagram or not in books yet. So I would definitely go to that. If you're interested in commercial work and how to position yourself towards clients, definitely check out that tab. But also I would spend some time on the personal work tab. ⁓ there's a lot of work there that I think a lot of people have not seen before. ⁓ but also I I share quite often to my Visco page, my Visco profile. If you're on Visco, definitely check that up. ⁓ because I'm not they're not telling me to say this or forcing me to say this at all. This is genuine. Every photo you have seen that I have ever shared online or anywhere on YouTube any Every photo has been edited with Visco on Visco Cam. I'm not kidding you. That is an honor. Every every single picture that is in my India book was edited through Visco Cam. So just putting that out there. If you're not on the app, try to download the app. It's a it's an incredible tool that helped me build my visual voice and my visual style and everyone wants to know how I edit Visco. That's how I edit. All right. Well, thank you. Yes. Thank you. Honor to have you here and thank you for the all the advice for the talk. Yeah. Thank you guys.