Latest / The Nerdy Photographer Podcast / 153 - Structure & Spontaneity: Realizing Your Vision While Staying Flexible

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153 - Structure & Spontaneity: Realizing Your Vision While Staying Flexible · The Nerdy Photographer Podcast

• 0:05
  Unknown: And
• 0:13
  Casey Fatchett: that was a good stretch. Oh, hey there. Welcome
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  to the nerdy photographer podcast. I'm your host. Casey
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  addition to providing informative and entertaining
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  photography related information. I also go on adventures with the
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  crew of the starship Fibonacci. At the moment, I'm taking a
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  break from a sort of like a yoga class designed to increase
• 0:49
  mobility and flexibility. Being a galactic photographer and
• 0:53
  smuggler and cargo hauler can take a toll on the body, and
• 0:58
  maintaining flexibility is key, speaking of flexibility, in this
• 1:02
  episode of the show, I speak with photographer Jonathan Pitt
• 1:04
  Wiley about having structure while remaining flexible in your
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  photography. It's a great conversation. Stay tuned for it
• 1:11
  right after the break.
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  reliable web hosting today. Hello and welcome to the nerdy
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  photographer podcast. I'm your host, Casey Fatchett, and I'm
• 3:35
  here today with Jonathan Pitts Wiley, Jonathan, thank you for
• 3:39
  coming on the show.
• 3:41
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: Pleasure to be here. Casey, I'm glad
• 3:43
  thank you for your patience.
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  Casey Fatchett: We were finally able to schedule something
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  that's a minute, but we did it. We did it. We managed all right,
• 3:49
  before we get into everything else, we're gonna start with the
• 3:51
  dice. Breaker 17. What is the best photography related advice
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  you've ever received? I
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  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: I, you know, I don't even know if this
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  is advice, but it helps me keep perspective. Gosh, there's a
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  few, but I'll start with, like, the first one that, like, really
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  resonated with me was my friend and mentor, Leonora anzaldua.
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  She was like, you know, most of the light we experience comes
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  from above. I just love that. That just fits in my spirit
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  nicely. And then I had a friend of mine, Adam, who was talking
• 4:37
  about how, like, for National Geographic, like, kind of
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  historically, they're like acceptance to rejection rate, or
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  something like 15,000 to 115, 1000 rejections to one
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  acceptance. And I like that just because it, you know, something
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  I say to other photographers a lot, or people were training up,
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  or whatever is, most of the photographs you make are not.
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  Gonna be good, right?
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  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, and just on average,
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  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: lyrically, yeah. So appreciate when you get
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  it right. I mean, work to get it right. It's not, it's not luck,
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  per se. But you know, you're not, you know, National
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  Geographic, baby, yeah?
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  Casey Fatchett: I mean, it's just also it's the like, what,
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  it depends on what you're photographing. But like,
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  sometimes, you know, there's a matter. It's a matter of being,
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  having the skill and being, you know, good enough at your craft
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  that when the moment presents itself, that you're able to
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  capture it. That's, I think, that, like you people will talk
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  about, like, well, you know, the moments never come along. Like,
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  well, if the moment comes along, are you going to be able to
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  make, are you ready to seize the opportunity? Are you going to do
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  it justice with whatever you can do behind your camera? That's
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  that. That's the true test, I think, of like, you know. And
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  the other thing I always talk about like people is, you know,
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  consistency, if you're producing consistently good, like, that
• 6:03
  amazing image. Some of those are, like, once in a lifetime
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  things. But are you consistently producing high quality stuff?
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  And that, that's the thing. Like people are talking about, like,
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  getting hired. Or, like, you know, how do I get commissioned
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  to do something? Like, people want to know that they're they
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  can trust you to something.
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  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: So. So two points I want to say about that,
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  because I totally agree. So first of all, my mentor, Mary
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  Beth Meehan, tremendous documentary and portrait
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  photographer, been in the game a while, photojournalist, all
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  these things I came to appreciate. You know she had
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  like, a mid career exhibition a couple years ago, and just the
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  consistency of the work, it's like, oh, that was made in 2009
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  or that was made in 2019 or the end against, you've been working
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  for a minute, so, you know, they were pulling from other
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  exhibitions and other works that she had done. But you're pretty
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  seamless, you know, things that are separated by oftentimes more
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  than 10 years, or something like that. And then another sort of
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  thing in the photography conversations I've had, so one
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  of my absolute favorite portrait photographers is Celeste Sloman.
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  She does a lot of work, freelance work. She's, you know,
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  New York Times, National Geographic, all kinds of she's
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  great. She's great, great, great. And I had a buddy who
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  worked at the times, and he was saying, say, you know, John, the
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  reason why they hire her is not just because she's that good,
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  but they know that she will produce that, yeah, every time
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  and do it in a short amount of time. So, like, she can do it in
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  five minutes, right? You know, um, and that that has always
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  sort of sat with me, you know. But I also have a funny thing
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  of, you know, I don't know, it just again, we're just, I guess
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  we're riffing a little bit here, but, you know, kind of circling
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  back to the whole piece of, you know, advice I've gotten, or
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  things I think this is something I've come to learn to ask
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  myself, was I inefficient, or was I by myself? You know,
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  because sometimes, you know, you can hear like, oh, man, this
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  person did this in five minutes. Oh, this is a boom. They only
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  had this amount of time, but they had a team, they had they
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  had many other things, you know what I mean. And that's not to
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  say that it's not impressive that they did it in five
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  minutes, but one comparison remains the thief of joy. But
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  also, if your comparison compare like situations correct, because
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  if you're moving that light, if you're doing all of those
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  things, it just adds up. And so, you know, that's a, you know,
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  something that to keep me honest. And sometimes it was
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  like, Oh no, I was inefficient, or what have you. But really
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  learning that, you know, we talked about moments, but the
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  moments add up in the minutia to of, like, I had to move this. I
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  had to correct this, that that counts. And if you have people
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  who are like, Nah, I got that for you, and you can just focus
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  on shooting, yeah, it's just a different again. We're not
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  talking about quality, but circumstance matters when we're
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  when we're doing
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  Casey Fatchett: this, I think that's really important to keep
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  in mind. Like people you said comparison thief of joy is like,
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  yeah, I see so many people who will, and I used to do it all
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  the time. I think I'm much better at it now. I would look
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  at somebody's work and be like, oh, man, you know, I want to do
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  that. And then I'm sitting there, and then I find out,
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  like, oh, they Yeah, they had a whole production team. Somebody
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  built that set somebody's doing lighting somebody like, there's
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  all these people working on it together. And like, great. It's
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  a team. It's a team effort, whatever. But I should not be
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  sitting there going, like, how could I when I was starting out
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  as a photographer with my kit lens and whatever, and just say,
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  like, why am I not producing this thing that has a whole
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  studio with. You know, $20,000 worth of lights and, you know, a
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  production team of makeup and hair and costumes, and there's
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  like, and getting down on myself. Like, don't, like, yeah.
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  And the other thing that I would say, like, you were saying,
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  like, you know, am I being inefficient, or am I just doing
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  it by myself? Other thing is, like, am I, what am I? What is
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  my purpose here? And I think that some people don't
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  understand that efficiency tends to be necessary in a
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  professional context. When you're doing like corporate
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  headshots, or you're doing like things like, you know, like
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  stuff like this, where, where you're given a limited amount of
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  time, like it. Talked to Joe McNally one of those lighting
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  seminars but like, oh, you know, sometimes I'm given two minutes
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  with the CEO to take a headshot, and it's like, I got all my
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  stuff set up, and then they come in. Bang, bang, bang, we're
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  done. Like, you know, we don't have a ton of time to do this.
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  We don't get the luxury of playing. And I think there's a
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  difference between playing and, like trying to create something
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  new, and like just being inefficient, in the sense of,
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  like, nobody wants to pay you to mess around with your lights to
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  when they have a schedule.
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  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: And that's the thing, and it's, it's
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  interesting because I, you know, first of all, you know, I'm one
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  of the people like photography is an art and a craft. And I'll
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  always, like, err on it being in art, just because, you know, and
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  I didn't, in fact, I always thought of it as an art until I
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  had a, you know, a friend of mine, tremendous photographer.
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  And I was like, you're an artist? He's like, No, I don't
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  see it that way. And again, who am I going to tell I mean, I
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  will, you know, I will always regard him as an artist, because
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  I think what he does is artistic, and takes so much
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  craft and all this or artistic craft. But I really came to as I
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  as I got along, I really came to appreciate the distinction that
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  gets made. And again, I don't think it's about quality, I
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  think, but it ties to what you're talking about in terms of
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  efficiency, purpose, constraints, or what have you.
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  And I find that, you know, I very recently just gave myself
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  permission to say, like, I do conceptual and fine art
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  portraiture, like, that's what I do. I don't really, it's not
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  like I don't do client facing work, but it's just like, that's
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  not what interests me. I'm kind of more interested in my own
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  ideas, because then I I know what the standard is, is trying
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  to kind of hit a moving target. However, I say all of that to
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  say so so much sort of knowledge, tutelage, influence
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  comes from, you know, photographers who may not
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  consider themselves artists, but their craft is impeccable, but
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  also they are working under time constraints. They are working
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  under meeting the vision that somebody else sort of describes
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  to them. And so in a certain kind of way for my own practice,
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  craft, photographers teach me more in a certain kind of way
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  when it comes to the practical aspect of get it done right, and
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  how it works, and how it works, whereas, you know, but I still
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  like, you know, you know. I like what you said they were like, I
• 13:20
  still like the ability to play a lot of time, you know, man, if
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  I'm making portraits of someone, especially if I reach out to a
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  person a lot of time, it's like, I saw one shot, yeah, and the
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  rest of the role of film, or whatever we're shooting that
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  day, I'm just kind of like, let's, let's, let's see who you
• 13:39
  are on that day. And let's, let's build from that, you know.
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  But it's not like, I have, like, I oftentimes it'll be like, one
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  or two shots. I'm like, Oh, I just want that one. And then,
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  you know, you're playing with the house's money one, you got
• 13:57
  to try to get it. But also, you know, but you're playing with
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  the house's money after that. Because sometimes you know, and
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  of course, I, you know, you know, I work with, you know,
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  posing or, you know, really, as a portrait photographer, man, I
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  believe it's our first responsibility is to create the
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  conditions for a subject to be comfortable, to be photographed
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  like that's that's the job, you know. Forget the exposure
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  triangle and all that. That, of course, matters, but if you
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  haven't done that first job, you're not going to get the
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  best, you know, representation, yeah. And so, you know, again, a
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  lot of time it is really just about, you know, kind of
• 14:40
  creating those conditions. I get the, you know, it's like, I have
• 14:43
  one idea, but beyond that, it really is this interesting
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  collaborative process where they're gonna, they'll just do
• 14:49
  something, you know, they'll make a move in between poses
• 14:52
  where I'm like, Oh, didn't even know I wanted that look, but
• 14:56
  it's impeccable, hold still, right?
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  Casey Fatchett: Yeah? Know, I think that like, for me, one of
• 15:02
  the things about portraits, like, I do portraits people, but
• 15:04
  I also do like it comes around, like, mostly wedding
• 15:07
  photographer and like doing wedding photos, like trying to
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  make most of my clients are people who don't like to have
• 15:13
  their picture taken. They don't want to think about having their
• 15:16
  picture taken. So it's all about making them comfortable and
• 15:18
  giving them things to do. I was prompting versus posing. Like, I
• 15:23
  might say, like, oh, just lift your arm a little bit like,
• 15:25
  because that's going to create a great angle or whatever. But I'm
• 15:27
  not saying, like, place your arm here. Look this way, like, turn
• 15:31
  your head. It's just like, because then they're like, the
• 15:33
  life goes completely out of them. It's like, we're gonna
• 15:36
  play. And I might occasionally, like, guide you a little bit,
• 15:39
  oh, this is like, just turn a little bit more towards me,
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  like, oh yeah, perfect. Like, that's it, you know. Like, we're
• 15:43
  like, right there and like, and to keep them more focused on not
• 15:47
  having their picture taken and being in the moment and thinking
• 15:51
  about something else, because that way we're getting the real
• 15:56
  person, as opposed to the, yeah, not saying there isn't a place
• 16:00
  for, like, posed
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  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: there is. And again, I think that again,
• 16:05
  you know, I really do have a respect for every part of the
• 16:09
  craft. There's, there's, there's stuff that I'm interested in,
• 16:12
  and there's stuff that I'm not interested in or that doesn't
• 16:15
  move me. But I always find it weird when people will, like,
• 16:20
  insult types of photography, just like, you could just be
• 16:24
  quiet, it's fine. Like, it's just not your thing. You don't
• 16:28
  have to say anything. That's fine, you know. But you know, I
• 16:34
  think it would be just false to say, you know, every type of
• 16:37
  photography can teach me something, period, every type of
• 16:41
  photography can teach me something. And so if you can
• 16:45
  teach me something, or if something can teach me
• 16:48
  something, then I have to give it respect, like, like, I don't
• 16:55
  know. It's like, the weirdest thing when people like, well, I
• 16:56
  don't like, I do not shoot nature well, like, it's just not
• 17:02
  a thing I'm good at. I feel like I can identify a good nature
• 17:06
  photo, but make one. I'm like, But will I engross myself in
• 17:13
  nature photos from time to time? Yeah, because you still have to
• 17:18
  arrive at making the exposure the same way,
• 17:21
  Casey Fatchett: yeah, doesn't matter. There's, there's that
• 17:24
  technical knowledge that has to, kind of, like we were saying, I
• 17:28
  was saying before, like, when the moment presents itself, you
• 17:30
  have to have the you have to be able to have the craft, to
• 17:36
  create the art consistently. I'm gonna say consistently. Because,
• 17:42
  like, people will say, like, well, you know, I had somebody
• 17:45
  it was, it was talking to about, like, they say, like, oh, you
• 17:48
  know, technical knowledge is BS, you don't need it anymore with
• 17:52
  digital cameras. And them was like, Well, if you want to be
• 17:54
  consistent, you need to know. And they like, oh, I picked up
• 17:57
  my first camera and I had it on auto mode, and I take a, this is
• 18:02
  the first picture I ever took as a professional blah, blah, like,
• 18:05
  it was great picture. I still have it today after 15 years.
• 18:08
  And I was like, Yeah, but how often were you getting those?
• 18:11
  The picture like that, just because you got one doesn't mean
• 18:15
  like you are, like, putting out regularly, like that
• 18:20
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: work can you do it again, right?
• 18:22
  Everybody is capable of making one great photograph. Everybody,
• 18:26
  I don't care, like, boom, yeah. But can you do it again? Yes,
• 18:35
  can you do it again, you know? And can you do it on purpose
• 18:39
  again, right? Yes. Thing especially early, I made plenty
• 18:43
  of good shots, but I'm like, Man, I couldn't have I couldn't
• 18:46
  tell you how I did it, doing it again. Whereas now I feel like
• 18:51
  I'm a more effective photographer in some respects,
• 18:55
  simply because I know how to troubleshoot or, like, make the
• 19:02
  image come to life on a technical level, I just, you
• 19:07
  know, and I'm not saying, like, you know, I don't believe in
• 19:09
  mastery on a certain level. I don't like to use that sort of
• 19:12
  language. I'm far from being able to do such things. But
• 19:15
  there are things that I have learned and absorbed in that I
• 19:18
  lean on where I effectively can say, if you hand me any type of
• 19:25
  camera, I can make an effect. Now you and I, and you'll hear
• 19:30
  me often use the word effective, because I hate the word good,
• 19:33
  because it's like, I don't know what that means, but effective
• 19:36
  very like subjective. Yeah, right. But I can make an
• 19:39
  effective image, because I understand literally how a
• 19:45
  camera works, right, you know, and that's why I shoot a lot of
• 19:50
  film and things, not simply because, you know, of the
• 19:54
  esthetic and the vibe and the look and the nostalgia quality,
• 19:56
  although that all factors in, I certainly. Be happy to admit
• 20:01
  that, but on another level, like, I can understand how an
• 20:08
  analog film camera works. Like, I can't actually tell you how a
• 20:11
  digital camera works, bro, I'm not a computer scientist. Like,
• 20:14
  I don't actually know how it's if you told me it's like, well,
• 20:16
  it's actually witchcraft, I'd be like, fine. That works. Yeah,
• 20:22
  you know, the film camera, they're, they're simple, yeah,
• 20:29
  there's a simplicity to it. There's just, like, a, oh, this,
• 20:32
  this, this, this, you know,
• 20:35
  Casey Fatchett: there's something romantic about it,
• 20:37
  too. I would say, like, I love film because, you know, even if
• 20:41
  you want to get scientific about it, it's still like the energy
• 20:44
  coming off of your subject is going through and creating a
• 20:48
  reaction with that film and like that. And you know how, like,
• 20:53
  yeah, there's just it is in a way, simpler to understand then,
• 20:59
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: well, I think it's in. Here's the
• 21:01
  technical part of Sure. Here's my say the weird thing.
• 21:07
  Response. You know that meme of like, say the weird thing? Yeah.
• 21:10
  So my weird thing is, I actually think that we are drawn to film,
• 21:17
  or we have that connection to it, one obviously, because it's
• 21:20
  like how we understood a photograph to be growing up and
• 21:22
  all this. But my little fringy theory is because film requires
• 21:28
  water to work, it's like a thing that like it needs water. We
• 21:33
  need water. There's a kindred relationship. There's chemical
• 21:35
  there's alchemy. But it's like, I'm just like it. I don't I
• 21:39
  can't relate to a, like, a computer type machine, right
• 21:44
  again, whereas, like, film, you need water, me too.
• 21:48
  Casey Fatchett: There's, there is sort of a, you mentioned
• 21:51
  alchemy. I think that there is really just sort of a magic to
• 21:53
  it. And it's like Spielberg said something about it, like, oh,
• 21:57
  digital is, like this incredible technological innovation,
• 22:01
  whereas film is magic, it's just like, there's just a certain
• 22:07
  sense of like, you just like, it's it's magic. And if you ever
• 22:13
  spend any time in the dark room, like you see that image, like
• 22:17
  coming to life in there, it is. It is, like, one of the most
• 22:22
  magical feelings you feel, every time
• 22:25
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: and it'll teach you to humble you. I've
• 22:27
  lost rules of film. Or, like, Oh, didn't develop that, right?
• 22:30
  Or, Oh, the chemicals went bad. I didn't know. So, like, there
• 22:33
  was a real, when I say organic, I mean, obviously these are
• 22:36
  toxic chemicals, but, yes, but, but there was a certain like,
• 22:44
  again, whether you want to call but on chemistry or there's just
• 22:47
  this organic nature to it that, you know, digital is just it
• 22:54
  exists in a different space. You know, I grew up in the theater,
• 22:57
  in the performing arts, and my family is still very much
• 23:00
  involved in that. And to me, rather than people, you know,
• 23:04
  trying to draw comparison or like, what's better or worse?
• 23:07
  You know, it all comes down to preference. But I feel like film
• 23:10
  photography is the theater as digital photography is to motion
• 23:14
  picture. It's just like they don't need to be at cross
• 23:18
  purposes with each other, because acting on stage is a
• 23:21
  certain thing, but I promise you, acting for the screen is a
• 23:25
  craft and a style, and it takes a certain thing that, like, you
• 23:30
  don't just assume, not always err on the side of thinking
• 23:33
  like, if you can act on stage, you can figure out the camera
• 23:37
  Casey Fatchett: there's different they're different
• 23:39
  experiences. As as, as a former actor myself, it's a, you know,
• 23:44
  it's a thing. The one thing that I had to learn that was way
• 23:48
  different about being in a film than being on the stage was, on
• 23:53
  the stage you have to get it to the last row, whereas on film,
• 23:59
  you have to bring it a lot of times, you have to bring it so
• 24:02
  small, and you're just in the camera, like that, that sort of
• 24:06
  thing, like and, yes, it's such a different energy. I think, I
• 24:13
  think the analogy you're making between digital and film is it's
• 24:16
  very accurate. Like, it's a different experience. It's just
• 24:19
  like two different it's just totally they don't have to be
• 24:22
  opposed to one another. It's just a different experience.
• 24:25
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: I That's why I call I say I'm a film
• 24:27
  first hybrid photographer. Like, if you give me the choice to
• 24:31
  shoot film, if somebody said you can only ever shoot film, I'd be
• 24:33
  like, All right, bet I'm fine. But there are times when I'm
• 24:37
  like, Well, this is this? This, this other medium, this other
• 24:41
  medium, this digital medium, is just going to be more effective,
• 24:43
  more practical, more something or whatever. And sometimes it's
• 24:46
  just like, oh, there's a certain look that I'm like, No, that's a
• 24:49
  very specific kind of look that's going to give me that
• 24:51
  cool. You know what I mean? You know that's something I'm trying
• 24:57
  to learn and get better about. Is like. Yeah, I've wasted a lot
• 25:01
  of time being precious about things that don't matter. That's
• 25:07
  that's in and I, and I feel like I'm still working my way out of
• 25:11
  that. I have a project even now, where I'm, like, I I was, I
• 25:18
  don't know why I was precious about, like, how I go about
• 25:22
  making the work, but like, it didn't serve the work, right?
• 25:29
  Like it was, that was, that was ego, that was me, is I want to
• 25:32
  be able to say I did this in this way, because who gives a I
• 25:36
  don't know. You can go ahead, okay, who gives a shit? Do like
• 25:43
  now sometimes it does meant, like, and if it does matter,
• 25:46
  then totally fine. I'm into that. I'm not even off of that
• 25:50
  idea. But is it about the what it's doing for the work, or is
• 25:54
  it just so you can say that I did this in this way, and if
• 25:59
  it's the latter, get off that it's dumb, yeah? Because there's
• 26:03
  plenty of other opportunities where it's like, no, I want to
• 26:06
  do this this way for this specific reason, and this is how
• 26:10
  it serves the work. Great, great. But I was just like, you
• 26:16
  know, I was trying to prove something, yeah, I think prove
• 26:20
  something more so than I was trying to tell the best story in
• 26:24
  front of me
• 26:24
  Casey Fatchett: or create something you were just trying
• 26:26
  to, like, Yeah, you said your ego got in the way. I think that
• 26:31
  happens to a lot of people. Like, I mean, and I'm hoping I'm
• 26:35
  working on a film project, but I've kind of film finished it
• 26:38
  up. I've talked about it before on the show, but, like, I My
• 26:42
  parents passed away in 2020 I found all these unused rolls of
• 26:46
  film in their house. Oh, wow. And I decided to do this project
• 26:51
  where I was, like, photographing my dog, because I know that I've
• 26:55
  only got a limited amount of time with her. Yeah, over the in
• 26:58
  like, we spend a lot of time together, but it's sort of like,
• 27:00
  you know, there's something to me, like, You're, like, the
• 27:03
  alchemy of it. The is, I was a physics major as well as the
• 27:08
  theater major and journalism. But like the science of, like
• 27:14
  the energy that's coming through there, like it bounces out
• 27:17
  there, there's always feeling like there's this part of, like,
• 27:20
  those particles got entangled with each other, and then they
• 27:24
  came through, and, you know, got entangled with that film. And
• 27:27
  there's so that there's something of their energy always
• 27:31
  part of that film, and that that's what drew me to the to
• 27:34
  using the film in that way. It wasn't about me, yeah.
• 27:39
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: That's not, yeah, that's it. That's how
• 27:41
  you do that. See, that's not what I was doing. I was like, I
• 27:44
  want to show and again, it was, or it was, it was blended. For
• 27:47
  me. It was like, I love this particular film. I like this
• 27:50
  particular like format and shooting this, that in the third
• 27:54
  but like, I, again, I got precious about like, Well, I
• 27:58
  only want to use this many rules per session, No, bro, shoot
• 28:01
  until it's, I mean, not that, not that it's unlimited, but
• 28:05
  like, again, sometimes those restrictions, who is like, Who
• 28:09
  is that for? Who was that for? Yeah, nobody. And so it's, you
• 28:19
  know, I still find myself trying to sort of put a button on the
• 28:22
  project, and it's funny, because it's like, I don't want to
• 28:26
  undermine, like, the body of work, but also kind of want to
• 28:33
  write a forward of, like, ego is wild because it can keep you
• 28:37
  from Doing good shit.
• 28:39
  Casey Fatchett: Yes, yeah, absolutely. It makes you self
• 28:44
  critical, yeah, in a way that is damaging, in the sense that you
• 28:50
  look at it and go, This isn't good enough for what I think it
• 28:53
  should be, or whatever. Instead of going like, Well, what do I
• 28:56
  actually want to create here? What was the story I'm trying to
• 28:59
  tell? Instead of putting it into yourself and going like, oh
• 29:02
  well, this makes me look bad, or this makes, you know, whatever,
• 29:06
  like this isn't I'm not projecting that. I am a, you
• 29:09
  know, the most amazing photographer in the world with
• 29:13
  this, this photo, like, instead of, well, what am I trying to
• 29:16
  say with this picture? I think I did that a lot, and still do it
• 29:21
  occasionally, where I'll sit there and look at the photo and
• 29:23
  go, like, Oh, this isn't I bring up, like, my wife and I go,
• 29:29
  we'll go on on trips, and I'll take photos. And like, she's,
• 29:31
  like, I never see the photos from the trip. Like, you'll take
• 29:34
  1000 photos on like, some trip, and like, I never could see the
• 29:36
  pictures. Like, because there's a part of me that was just sort
• 29:39
  of like, and I started doing it this year, but going into those
• 29:42
  and being like, I recently put up a slideshow of photos I took
• 29:47
  in New Orleans in like, 2018 and I looked at them before, and
• 29:52
  been like, yeah, they're all right. And then I kind of went
• 29:53
  back into them, like, was looking at them, going like,
• 29:57
  actually, these are like, some of these are very, very good.
• 29:59
  And. Kind of going like, Okay, this is the story I want to tell
• 30:02
  with these photos and editing them and, like, making sure
• 30:04
  that, like, there's some consistency there, and going
• 30:07
  like, oh this, yeah, actually, instead of sitting there going
• 30:11
  like, oh, I needed some perfect picture that encapsulates all of
• 30:17
  New Orleans culture in one photo, instead of, like, telling
• 30:20
  the story of, you know, what was going on?
• 30:25
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: 100% 100% i i still do it, you know, I try
• 30:30
  to lessen it, you know, I still do it. And, like, you know, it's
• 30:36
  like, if you want to make a good image, right? Sometimes you just
• 30:40
  get in your own way, because it's like, well, the moments
• 30:42
  passed, yeah.
• 30:43
  Casey Fatchett: Oh, so you mentioned you come from a
• 30:46
  theater background. What got you into photography? How'd you get
• 30:49
  started?
• 30:50
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: Yeah, no. So on a very practical levels,
• 30:54
  2018 is the fall of 2018 again, I always, you know liked
• 30:58
  photography, but not enough to like do something about it. But
• 31:03
  it was a fall of 2018 in our theater, mixed Magic Theater.
• 31:10
  You know, we needed some like press photos and production
• 31:13
  photos and things. And, you know, being a non profit arts
• 31:17
  organization, you don't always have the most robust budget in
• 31:21
  the world. Yeah, and so I really said to myself. I was like, You
• 31:24
  know what? Let me become proficient enough to just do,
• 31:29
  like, some it's good enough for press photos, good enough for
• 31:32
  production photos, just, you know, really kind of a
• 31:37
  utilitarian approach. Dare I say? Well, I started doing that,
• 31:45
  and I just was bitten by the bug. I loved it. And in that
• 31:53
  same fall, my grandmother had passed away, or my grandmother
• 31:57
  passed away, like, shortly after this sort of foray into
• 32:00
  photography began. And, you know, I've said this a few other
• 32:05
  places, and I'm sure I've said it on IG or whatever, but, you
• 32:12
  know, so I saw my grandmother on every single birthday of my
• 32:18
  life. I've seen both of my parents every single birthday of
• 32:20
  my life. I was born on Christmas so but every birthday I've ever
• 32:24
  had, I've seen my parents, both my parents, and up till my
• 32:30
  grandmother passed away, same story. And I think there was
• 32:35
  just something really about like, the, you know, the like,
• 32:40
  the passage of time of like you do this thing, it's so regular,
• 32:44
  and then suddenly it just, it's gone, it's gone, you know. And
• 32:51
  how brief it all ultimately was, you know. And so it got very
• 32:58
  much into a like a man get into it a conversation she and I had,
• 33:03
  or things of that nature. It was just more like sort of that
• 33:06
  energetic and spiritual sense of do stuff that you like doing, do
• 33:13
  stuff that interests you because, like, there's, there's
• 33:18
  a point in which you will spin off this mortal coil and not a
• 33:21
  point of your choosing, you know, um, and so I just dove
• 33:28
  headlong, sort of into it, and it felt, you know, new, in the
• 33:34
  sense of, I didn't feel like I was, like, following In any
• 33:39
  particular footsteps or things of that nature. Whereas, you
• 33:44
  know, with theater, there's legacy behind that. There's
• 33:48
  like, you know, there in again, all that is great. And as I say,
• 33:53
  publicly, privately and ever in between, there's been no greater
• 33:57
  influence on my photography than the theater like it, like, you
• 34:03
  know, and so, so that's what brought me into it. And just,
• 34:10
  you know, from there, you know, I kind of quickly, you know, go
• 34:16
  from, you know, shooting digital, I was like, Okay, I'm
• 34:18
  gonna start shooting some film because, you know, it's a good
• 34:20
  way. You know, people to shoot black and white film. Is good
• 34:23
  way to learn which it really is. And I encourage everybody to do
• 34:25
  it, um, and then, you know, kind of early into it, and probably
• 34:31
  not even two years into it, I saw Mamiya, RB, six, seven, in
• 34:36
  the case, at hunt. So, like my local camera store. And this is
• 34:43
  when you get, like, an RV kit for like 500 bucks. And it was,
• 34:47
  you could do that. And so I bought it, and I and I remember
• 34:52
  the first time I looked through the ground glass, like, you
• 34:55
  know, that waist level ground glass, and it, it changed my
• 34:58
  life. Man, Casey, I'm like. It sounds all dramatic and such,
• 35:02
  but I really looked through and I was like, Oh no, not. And
• 35:07
  that's when I was hooked. That's when I was like, okay, okay.
• 35:14
  Because you just come to realize that there's, there's so many
• 35:17
  different ways to experience photography, to make a
• 35:22
  photograph, to experience making a photograph. And I loved how
• 35:29
  shooting the RB makes me feel. You know, I feel that same way.
• 35:32
  Still something about that RB, but RZ is a little nicer. The
• 35:35
  Little brother is a little nicer, because the RB will just
• 35:38
  let you shoot and be like, Oh, dark slides in. Sorry, buddy,
• 35:42
  you know, I mean whatever, um, or, Oh, you didn't want to do a,
• 35:46
  you didn't want to do a nine frame multi exposure. You should
• 35:49
  have let me know
• 35:51
  Casey Fatchett: Guess you should have owned that.
• 35:53
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: Yeah, but um, it's, you know, I was
• 36:01
  talking with some friends about this recently, and I'm a big
• 36:03
  about this. One of the things that I just despise about artist
• 36:08
  statements is this whole nice, something I despise about artist
• 36:15
  statements. One, I have a whole thing of like, man, just look at
• 36:19
  the body of work. Like, I maybe give you some contextual like,
• 36:22
  here's why, here's what this was. But like, why am I
• 36:24
  explaining myself? It's in the work. But more than that, on a
• 36:29
  fundamental level, the artist statement is I thought it was
• 36:34
  beautiful, and I felt compelled to share, like, like, I like, I
• 36:39
  don't have anything more like smart or whatever, to say about
• 36:44
  I thought it was beautiful, and I felt compelled to share,
• 36:47
  Casey Fatchett: listen like I photographed a lot of art fairs,
• 36:52
  like big stuff, like Basel and like the armory and other like
• 36:59
  art things and and half the time, like, I refer to it as,
• 37:03
  you know, it's like a, I don't know, Mad Libs. It feels like
• 37:09
  sometimes they like, they just have, like, this pattern, and
• 37:12
  they just like, well, what adjective can I use that hasn't
• 37:15
  been used already, you know, for like, to try to describe this.
• 37:20
  And it feels like it's like, just sort of like, I'm
• 37:25
  justifying my own existence. And instead of saying, like, Hey,
• 37:30
  look at this. Look at this. What does it make you feel? Right?
• 37:36
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: Like, why might like, we're and I get why,
• 37:39
  but like one, we're feeling creatures that think, I believe
• 37:43
  that, and so we're trying to intellectually, you know, we're
• 37:47
  trying to fight by the book of arithmetic on something that
• 37:51
  defies explanation. It's like, if I wanted to write it down, I
• 37:54
  would have,
• 37:58
  Casey Fatchett: I would have wrote a story instead of,
• 38:00
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: yeah, but it's like, it's, it's, I very
• 38:04
  much always base things first on how an image makes me feel,
• 38:08
  whether I'm making that image and looking through the archives
• 38:11
  or whatever, or looking at other people's work. It's about how it
• 38:14
  makes me feel. I then go, well, something I talk about a lot.
• 38:20
  And again, I come from theater, so a lot of you know directing.
• 38:24
  You know a lot of you did a lot of theater directing over the
• 38:26
  last 20 years or so. And you know the mammoth quote of you
• 38:31
  can extort a standing ovation from an audience, but you can't
• 38:34
  extort a gasp, right? And like, and that's, and that's, and I
• 38:38
  feel like that's the same thing, because if I'm directing a play.
• 38:41
  I want you intellectualizing it like as it's happening. Do that
• 38:45
  at intermission. Do that later, after the show is over, after
• 38:48
  the show is over, but like no, I want you locked in, in feeling
• 38:53
  that whatever the feeling is. I want you to feel right. And I
• 38:59
  feel the same way about photography, you know, it's,
• 39:04
  it's about like, how did it move my spirit? I can then be like,
• 39:09
  Oh, great use of the rule of thirds, or way to, like, you
• 39:13
  know, or something is like using Dutch angle, but in a way that
• 39:17
  isn't unsettling, but it's actually inviting. So there's a
• 39:22
  wedding photographer out of Virginia. She works out in New
• 39:25
  York as well now too, Allie Hansen, and I just love her
• 39:29
  work, and I've followed it for last couple of years. Beyond the
• 39:32
  fact Alex is good people in the most Instagram, you know,
• 39:38
  internet friend kind of way. But she just has, like, this
• 39:43
  incredible way of like, again, using Dutch angles, in odd
• 39:49
  angles, but in ways that are not unsettling, but are actually,
• 39:52
  like, inviting, and you want to come in and it feels very
• 39:56
  approachable. And I'm like, that's why, that's why I. You
• 40:00
  know, I'm proud of my own work or whatever, but, man, I can
• 40:04
  talk about all kinds of photographers who I'm like, Man,
• 40:06
  I wish I could do this. Or like, I I'm trying to get that good or
• 40:11
  whatever, and I don't. I always feel like it's weird when
• 40:13
  people, like, cannot do that. I'll be honest with that's a
• 40:15
  weird thing.
• 40:16
  Casey Fatchett: Can't look at somebody else's work and say
• 40:18
  what they enjoy about it, or like, I think there's also this,
• 40:21
  this word I'm thinking of the is the what you were saying about,
• 40:28
  like, trying to, like, put the way, there's another word of how
• 40:36
  your experience other people's photos, yeah. And, and I don't
• 40:41
  know if you're familiar with his work. Johnny Edwards, Johnny
• 40:44
  creative, yeah. He takes these amazingly lit, like, textured,
• 40:52
  lot depth, like incredibly, like, deep photos, which are
• 40:58
  great, fantastic. But then he has these, like, sort of,
• 41:01
  there'll be these images that are like, out of focus. There's
• 41:06
  like, there's a part of this out of focus. And I, when I
• 41:07
  interviewed him, and we've talked separately, like, not
• 41:11
  just, you know, whenever just saying like, and I'll say, like,
• 41:14
  Oh, those are the photos. Like, I love the other photos. Like,
• 41:17
  they are just that, they're amazing. You know, I'm kind of
• 41:21
  jealous of your ability to see color and, like, in a way, in
• 41:24
  the way that you do, but like, those photos are the ones that
• 41:29
  really get me, like, resonate with me, and I feel it inside,
• 41:33
  because, oh, those like, just coming full circle. Those are
• 41:36
  the ones where we were just playing around. Like, that's
• 41:39
  after, I know I've got that the shot and like, now we're just
• 41:45
  gonna have some fun and play around a little bit. And going
• 41:48
  back to what we were talking about earlier, like, Yeah, this
• 41:49
  is, this is the the I have the technical precision to know that
• 41:54
  I got my initial aim. Now I'm going to try for something else
• 41:59
  and see what happens. We're gonna, we're now, we're gonna
• 42:01
  play around and see what we get. And I remember what I was
• 42:05
  thinking about before. What I always say is emotional weight
• 42:09
  is more important than technical perfection. Yeah, the way in
• 42:13
  which you experience somebody's photo, then you can go back to
• 42:17
  it afterwards and go like, Oh, what did they do technically
• 42:19
  that, that that happened here? Like, just so you can analyze
• 42:22
  and kind of go like, of go like, Oh, they, like you said, they
• 42:24
  use the rule of thirds this way, they use the Dutch angle that,
• 42:27
  like, they, they, you know, used a long shutter and, like, second
• 42:32
  curtain sync on their flash, or whatever they did. And you can
• 42:36
  kind of like, analyze it afterwards, but that initial
• 42:38
  moment, you're not looking at it, the first time you see it
• 42:40
  and going, what's the rule? Are they using the rule of thirds in
• 42:43
  this one? How do they Yeah, I wonder if they this was handheld
• 42:47
  or on a tripod
• 42:48
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: No, exactly you that.
• 42:51
  Casey Fatchett: I've been doing some research for some writing
• 42:55
  about how people experience photos and you analyze an image
• 43:05
  that you see in milliseconds, like, it's just like, You okay,
• 43:12
  like, like that, that initial impression you get is so fast
• 43:16
  from any photo. And I was initially was doing it like, how
• 43:20
  quickly do people, like, trust like, it's about like, you know,
• 43:24
  headshots like theater or business, whatever, when people
• 43:28
  see your LinkedIn or your your eight by your eight by 10,
• 43:32
  whatever, like, what minute they see that, they make their
• 43:34
  decision like that, boom. It's done like, there's no like,
• 43:40
  sitting there analyzing it. You're not going to sit there go
• 43:44
  over it and go, like, well, how does it really make me feel? No,
• 43:47
  this is, can I trust you? Can I trust this person? Like, whether
• 43:51
  it's business, like, if I'm going to hire some business to
• 43:54
  do some work for me, like, I'm looking for a law firm. You
• 43:56
  know, if everybody's got a different looking headshot and
• 44:00
  there's no consistency, and some of them are really bad. Like,
• 44:02
  I'm not hiring these people. Like, they can't get their act
• 44:06
  together enough to do like,
• 44:08
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: yeah, I don't even look good next to
• 44:10
  each other.
• 44:12
  Casey Fatchett: I'm not, like, trusting you guys with whatever,
• 44:15
  sure. But yeah, it's that you experience that emotional part
• 44:20
  of it immediately. And it's like, when I go through and I'm
• 44:24
  calling my images, you know, some people will be like, Oh,
• 44:27
  why did you keep that photo? Like, I've done, like, live,
• 44:29
  like, culling and like showing people like, Oh, this is I'm
• 44:32
  going through and I'm keeping this image, and they'll be like,
• 44:34
  Why did you keep that? I'm just curious. I'm like, Well, look at
• 44:36
  that photo. Look at how they're like these, this couple is
• 44:39
  interacting with each other. Like, sure, this photo over here
• 44:44
  is, like, completely sharp in focus, whatever, but there's no
• 44:47
  electricity between these people in this image. This has got a
• 44:51
  little bit of motion blur, but there's like, so much energy
• 44:54
  going on in it, like, you have to be able to that's what you
• 44:58
  need to see. I think this. People are looking for, like,
• 45:00
  some sort of magical equation that's going to tell them, like,
• 45:04
  is this a good picture or not? Like you look at it, you know,
• 45:07
  like there's something, I think it makes you feel away.
• 45:11
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: Was it? Robert Frank, you said, you
• 45:12
  know, you want to make an image that's like a line of a poem
• 45:16
  that you want to read again. And I'm like, yeah, that that's it.
• 45:19
  Because for me, if I'm, if I linger on an image, there's
• 45:23
  something like, that's the thing is, like, I'll look and you're
• 45:26
  right. You do that quick. But if I, if I just stay and sit with
• 45:30
  it, that's how I know it's something, yeah, and whether
• 45:35
  it's my own work or somebody else's, but I just go by, okay,
• 45:42
  but that thing that made you stop and going, huh? Or you just
• 45:45
  that you're drawn to it, yeah, it
• 45:49
  Casey Fatchett: makes you feel a way, yes, like, that's and
• 45:52
  that's the thing, like, going back through any like, then
• 45:56
  sometimes artists that I've enjoyed are because of the way
• 46:01
  they can get under your skin. Like, I love horror movies, but
• 46:08
  also, like, David Lynch, yeah, and my wife and I were having a
• 46:13
  discussion about Blue Velvet, yeah, and I had found a video,
• 46:19
  and she was like, Well, you know, I just think that it's,
• 46:21
  you know, just like, in ways, it doesn't make sense to me and and
• 46:26
  my response was, like, it doesn't have to, like, totally
• 46:29
  make sense. You interpret it like you. It's left open to you
• 46:34
  to interpret. And I found this video from Simon Pegg, the
• 46:39
  actor, where he was talking about, like, I introduced my
• 46:40
  daughter to Blue Velvet, and she hates it for all the reasons
• 46:45
  David Lynch would want you to hate it. He's like, and I'm so
• 46:48
  and I'm so proud. And like, you know, we're talking about it.
• 46:50
  And she's like, I don't know what. Like, you know, I don't
• 46:53
  like this, and I this makes me uncomfortable. And this is
• 46:55
  really like, yeah, like, art doesn't always, isn't always
• 47:00
  like, oh, joyful. And like, I totally understand it. And
• 47:04
  everything like, comes together perfectly and nicely. Yeah. It's
• 47:08
  like, sometimes people make you do the work yourself, or they
• 47:11
  purposely make you uncomfortable. They're like,
• 47:13
  they're musical. There's meters, like Shakespeare used meters
• 47:17
  that like were not really would make you, like, feel
• 47:21
  uncomfortable in certain speeches so that you weren't Oh,
• 47:24
  like, so that really did get you, like, feeling angry or
• 47:27
  upset about whatever was going on and understanding that, like,
• 47:31
  it's the same in in photography, like you can break rules to make
• 47:37
  people feel a certain way about an image. And like, that's,
• 47:40
  that's, it's understanding those things.
• 47:44
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: It's interesting too, because that's
• 47:46
  one of the things that, and I don't know that it's like
• 47:50
  people, you know, everybody needs to have a signature look
• 47:53
  or something of that nature. But I do think that there's really
• 47:57
  something special about when you when you can identify work by
• 48:03
  how it just looks. I think that that like that to me is the
• 48:09
  ability to carve out identity, you know. And I think that, you
• 48:16
  know, that's probably even where I and not so much in the
• 48:21
  ambitions way of going, you know, but just in the sense of,
• 48:25
  like, Does my work have a look? Do you need to see my name to
• 48:32
  know or have a sense that I did it? Yeah.
• 48:36
  Casey Fatchett: I mean, well, do you think that there are themes
• 48:38
  that you were drawn to, or certain like styles that you're
• 48:42
  drawn to, as far as like the family like that, or emotional
• 48:48
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: you know, I'm drawn to, right? I think
• 48:51
  that's where it comes back to theater. I mean, again, theater
• 48:54
  is really an exploration of the interiority of people. So if I
• 49:00
  was to say the thing that I hope that my work reflects or like if
• 49:04
  I wanted to, you know, if I was able to choose an identifying
• 49:08
  aspect of my work, it would be, you know, faithfully, you know,
• 49:18
  authentically, reflecting the interiority of that person in
• 49:22
  that moment, like, that's the thing that I strive to do.
• 49:26
  That's probably, you know, one of the reasons why I like to
• 49:28
  work in black and white, you know, predominantly because
• 49:31
  Casey Fatchett: it's like things down, you can't hide in black
• 49:35
  and white.
• 49:35
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: Can't, you know, you cannot. And so there's
• 49:41
  that piece of it. I mean, I think that there's like, you
• 49:46
  know what it is to be me and my black self in the spaces that I
• 49:51
  exist in, have grown up in, and, you know, the various you know,
• 49:56
  all the world's a stage, and it's men and women and merely
• 49:58
  players. So, you know, we all are. Always performing, I our
• 50:02
  identities at all, at all times, to varying degrees. And maybe,
• 50:09
  you know, the real test of things is like, are you
• 50:12
  performing this identity because you want to be or because you
• 50:14
  feel like you have to? So I think that there's, you know,
• 50:20
  that that's an important, you know, piece of it in reflecting
• 50:24
  and depicting the environments and communities that I'm in and
• 50:29
  around. I so Jamel Shabazz, who's just an incredible, you
• 50:41
  know, documentary and portrait photographer. He's, you know,
• 50:44
  he's, I mean, in terms of, like, hip hop cultural photography,
• 50:51
  and certainly, like, just, he's on, you know, he's, he's, he's a
• 50:56
  legend in deservedly so, and beyond the fact that I just love
• 51:01
  his work and like how it looks and how it really is an archive
• 51:07
  of a time period. Yeah, incredible. I think the thing
• 51:13
  that I aspire to is that in every single frame that he puts
• 51:21
  out. I can sense his essential respect for his subject in the
• 51:30
  dip like in and I'm like, if somebody ever told me that they
• 51:37
  got that sense from my work, I don't, you know, forget about
• 51:40
  the technical whatever, but an essential and fundamental
• 51:46
  respect for the humanity and dignity of the subject in front
• 51:52
  of you. If somebody ever said that, I do that like Jamel
• 51:55
  Shabazz, I'm like, shit. Y'all have to tell me nothing else.
• 51:59
  Like you. The comments are closed forever.
• 52:02
  Casey Fatchett: Like, yeah, it's, I think it's also, like,
• 52:05
  it's an understanding of your subject, or empathy for your
• 52:08
  subject, and not necessarily in a way of like, Oh, I feel sorry
• 52:11
  for you. Like, people listen. They think Empathy means, oh,
• 52:14
  I'm feeling sorry for somebody's situation. It's the on, like,
• 52:17
  being able to, like, put yourself in their situation. And
• 52:21
  I think you brought up authenticity. I think I used to
• 52:24
  use it as a word that, because that was very much, you know,
• 52:27
  it's very much my style for like, weddings and portraiture
• 52:30
  and stuff like, I want people to be their authentic selves. And
• 52:33
  it's gotten a lot. It's being used way, way, way more now. And
• 52:36
  it's like starting to need to pull out the source, because
• 52:40
  it's starting to lose a little bit of its its punch as a word,
• 52:45
  but it is that like being able to a respect and understand
• 52:54
  somebody, but also being able To let them be comfortable enough
• 52:59
  to be authentically themselves is, you know, like, I think, is
• 53:05
  the one of the higher achievements in this and it
• 53:10
  brings me back to something I was thinking of when you're
• 53:11
  talking about the theater, and I think maybe you'll be able to,
• 53:16
  we're in kind of a as both The theater people have
• 53:19
  photographers uniquely positioned to discuss this. When
• 53:24
  I look back, I used to do a lot of Shakespeare, and, you know,
• 53:27
  all sorts of like act that stuff, and I look back when I
• 53:32
  see like a new production of a show that I did, or whatever,
• 53:38
  and I think about how I would deliver those lines differently
• 53:40
  now, as a human being, with my experience, my lived experience,
• 53:47
  how that changes my Outlook, of those words like I think that it
• 53:52
  also changes my photography and how I see, you know what I'm
• 53:58
  going to photograph, and I think that that has a big impact. What
• 54:01
  do you what are your thoughts on that?
• 54:03
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: Yeah, no, I think that that's absolutely
• 54:06
  true. I mean, something my father was a tremendous actor,
• 54:08
  talks about, it's like, you know, for certain roles that are
• 54:13
  iconic. So, you know, firstly, you played as a young man, you
• 54:16
  don't know what you're doing and you're going at it. But then you
• 54:20
  get some age and you get some seasoning to you. Seasoning is
• 54:23
  in it, and it just your again, your experience of the role
• 54:32
  changes because you're just bringing things to it that you
• 54:35
  simply could so what's great about it is you don't ever have
• 54:39
  to, like it's pretty regret free. Because what am I going to
• 54:45
  regret that which I had not experienced and did not know,
• 54:49
  and I feel the same way about, you know, photography in the
• 54:53
  sense of so much of what I've been trying to do of late is
• 54:58
  simplify. I. Get more simple. There was a lighting and I
• 55:02
  always get so upset at myself because I saw it sort of
• 55:04
  scrolling by on Instagram. But there was a lighting director
• 55:07
  talking about, like a film, motion picture, lighting
• 55:10
  director, lighting designer, talking about another lighting
• 55:13
  designer and cinematographer. And I was upset, but that I
• 55:18
  forget it, because if I see the clip, I'll send it to you. But
• 55:23
  you know this, this cinematographer looking back at
• 55:25
  their own career and saying, like, you know, starting out, I
• 55:29
  used as many lights as I could. Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop
• 55:33
  boop. And then he said, toward the end of his career, and
• 55:36
  things just like, the only thing he regretted is not figuring out
• 55:39
  how to light a scene with one light like and in that's, that's
• 55:44
  where I find myself, you know, when it comes to like making
• 55:51
  images, and I've also just sort of expanded into like doing,
• 55:55
  Like mixed media work in prints and things. But really trying to
• 56:05
  streamline and only bring that which is essential to making the
• 56:13
  image beautiful. So some of that is the technical piece of like,
• 56:15
  do I need all of these lines to do is this one angle just right
• 56:19
  where what I need, but also what I'm bringing to, you know,
• 56:27
  because it, you know, you're a photographer man, like you're
• 56:30
  trying to get a performance out of people in a certain kind of
• 56:32
  way, like you want to get a certain thing. And it's like, Am
• 56:36
  I doing that as efficiently as I could be doing it? Am I doing
• 56:40
  that in a way where I am showing up for, especially again, like
• 56:50
  you talk about people you know not necessarily wanting to be
• 56:52
  photographed, or like they're not comfortable in that way? Am
• 57:00
  I showing up with whether, whether it's vulnerability or
• 57:05
  accessibility or whatever the case may be, part of creating
• 57:12
  the conditions is giving the subject an opportunity to see
• 57:17
  you right.
• 57:20
  Casey Fatchett: You know, not just being like a floating
• 57:23
  camera that's pointed at them right
• 57:26
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: in so much of it is, you know, people have
• 57:29
  sometimes asked me, like, oh, like, you know, how to make good
• 57:33
  portraits and things. And like, you know, I give them the, like,
• 57:37
  the technical boilerplate stuff that's always good to just like,
• 57:40
  hey, do this. This is this. But I really like to stress how
• 57:44
  important that the connection with the subject is, you know,
• 57:52
  because they're the second most important thing to a photograph
• 57:55
  after light.
• 57:57
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, yeah. What is, what is the Yeah, I think
• 58:01
  that that you get obsessed with all the especially early on,
• 58:06
  like you said, you kind of get obsessed with all of the again,
• 58:09
  the I'll draw an analogy to cooking. It's like I want to
• 58:13
  throw everything I can in here, and sometimes you use all that
• 58:18
  to hide the taste of what you're doing, because you're like,
• 58:25
  you're not so confident in it, and you're like, Okay, I'm gonna
• 58:29
  throw all this stuff on top of it, because then you won't
• 58:33
  notice that I didn't, you know that I didn't engage with my
• 58:37
  subject, right? So I'm gonna throw all this lighting stuff in
• 58:39
  there, and like to make it, you know, tricky or whatever, but
• 58:44
  I've still got somebody who looks like they would rather be,
• 58:47
  you know, having their nails pulled out then, you know,
• 58:51
  someone who looks like they're engaged doesn't matter what
• 58:54
  you're giving me. Like, yeah, my, my, I had a roommate when I
• 58:59
  first moved to New York, who she was a stage manager, and she
• 59:02
  would say, like, the best headshots are where somebody's
• 59:04
  focused on something. It doesn't matter what it is, but they've
• 59:08
  got to be focused on something, because you got to be there's
• 59:11
  got to be some energy behind the eyes. Yeah, that's going on.
• 59:14
  It's in, like, when you see those photos of people who are
• 59:16
  just and, like, I've done a casting, and I'm sure you've
• 59:19
  been through the way you get these headshots, people really
• 59:21
  just, like, there's nothing going on. Nothing going on.
• 59:23
  There's no there. You're just like, yeah, exactly. And you're
• 59:27
  just like, I need whether it's, you know, evil or whatever,
• 59:33
  happy, seductive, whatever, the thing that's going on, there
• 59:36
  needs to be something going on and, well,
• 59:39
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: it's like actors. You got to make a
• 59:40
  choice. Like, make a choice. So our job is to like, we're
• 59:45
  effectively as directors, right? Did I create the conditions for
• 59:48
  you to make a choice,
• 59:49
  Casey Fatchett: or did I make a choice and tell you like and get
• 59:52
  you to the place where we needed to be? Like? It depends like,
• 59:54
  the type of photo you're taking. Like, if I need, if I need
• 59:57
  something out of you, if I need a specific if. Emotional state
• 1:00:00
  out of you and like, it's up to me to, like, get you into the
• 1:00:03
  place where you're that's what you're giving me. Like, I have
• 1:00:07
  lists of prompts that I have for people. And people are like, Oh.
• 1:00:10
  Like, some people have looked at them and go like, Oh, those are
• 1:00:13
  very serious. Like, some like, some of them, they look at some
• 1:00:16
  of them, they go like, this, that's really kind of, like,
• 1:00:18
  heartbreaking. And I'm like, it depends on what feeling I'm
• 1:00:22
  going for and what kind of a response I want from my subject.
• 1:00:25
  Of course, I've got some in there that are a little darker,
• 1:00:27
  like, Yeah, but that's, I'm not. It's not to make people
• 1:00:30
  uncomfortable, but it's just like, it's, it's dealing with
• 1:00:35
  coming up with the emotional like, people who are not trained
• 1:00:40
  to, especially, to come up with, like, an emotional state, and
• 1:00:43
  you're saying, like, I need this out of you. I need you to think
• 1:00:46
  about this, like, right? This type of thing,
• 1:00:49
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: something I say to, you know, portrait
• 1:00:53
  subjects all the time is, like, the only thing you can't do is
• 1:00:58
  tell a lie. Don't lie to the camera because there's, I'm not
• 1:01:04
  good enough to overcome a lie like there's, I don't have the
• 1:01:07
  gear, the skill set if you are not being your authentic self,
• 1:01:12
  whoever that is, in that moment, that's what the camera will pick
• 1:01:15
  up. And there's nothing that I can you're not being real. Do
• 1:01:19
  about that, right? And so, you know, showing up, and again, you
• 1:01:28
  said, like, authentic is show up as your genuine self. Let's make
• 1:01:31
  let's, let's genuine our word, man, yeah. But like, show up as
• 1:01:35
  your genuine self and whoever you are, that moment, you know,
• 1:01:39
  when I, when I do portraits with people for the first time, I ask
• 1:01:43
  three questions before the session. They get them like
• 1:01:45
  before, which is, how do you see yourself? How do others see you?
• 1:01:55
  How do you want to be seen? I am not like, I don't seek like, the
• 1:02:06
  answers. Or, you know, coming to the word this is not a specific
• 1:02:09
  thing. Yeah, there's not, but it's, it's, it's fascinating.
• 1:02:12
  What those three questions get people thinking about and how
• 1:02:15
  they tee up any number of direction. It's its own little
• 1:02:20
  20 sided die again, but
• 1:02:22
  Casey Fatchett: it also gives you a lot of insight into them.
• 1:02:26
  And that's one of the things I always tell people. Like, ask
• 1:02:29
  questions of your subjects, whether you have like, it's a
• 1:02:33
  portrait subject, wedding clients, whatever. There are
• 1:02:36
  lots of questions I ask people before any session. They're
• 1:02:40
  like, hey, this helps me get to know you, how you see yourself,
• 1:02:44
  and like, what situation we're in and what I can do. Like, I
• 1:02:47
  will always ask people what their favorite movies are, what
• 1:02:49
  their favorite music is, because if I can, like, bust out a line,
• 1:02:51
  like, I need to break the tension. If I can bust out a
• 1:02:54
  line from your favorite movie, or, like, sing a song, single
• 1:02:57
  lyric from your like, favorite song, that helps you, like, if
• 1:03:01
  we were in a real serious moment, and I need to break you
• 1:03:03
  out of that, like we can, or if like, or if you just feel stiff
• 1:03:08
  to me, like I can tell there's like, something going on, and
• 1:03:11
  you're like, You're frozen up. There's some way to break that,
• 1:03:14
  that tension, like getting to know people and knowing how
• 1:03:17
  they, yeah, they react to and who they are, how they like you
• 1:03:21
  said, how you how they see themselves, how they feel other
• 1:03:24
  people see them. That's like, that tells you, oh, man, I gotta
• 1:03:27
  add that to my list,
• 1:03:29
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: Please do because it's fun, because, and I
• 1:03:31
  phrase it as, how do others see you? Because I don't even tee up
• 1:03:35
  with the feel,
• 1:03:36
  Casey Fatchett: no, but I'm saying that's the undertone. Is
• 1:03:38
  like, it tells you a lot about like, what, what they're
• 1:03:40
  thinking and like, how they think people see them is just
• 1:03:43
  like,
• 1:03:43
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: Yeah, you know. And how do you want to be
• 1:03:47
  seen? It's, you know, so it's all, it's sort of introspective,
• 1:03:50
  but, you know, a bit aspirational. You know what I
• 1:03:53
  mean, yeah, it just, I found that it really sets the table
• 1:03:57
  nicely for any number of other questions and other prompts, you
• 1:04:07
  know, that get us to the place where, you know, maybe we make a
• 1:04:09
  good image or two, yeah.
• 1:04:11
  Casey Fatchett: I think that it's Yeah. It helps empower
• 1:04:17
  them, in a way, to have some voice in, like their image and
• 1:04:21
  like what, what they're putting out there, right? So I think
• 1:04:25
  we're getting that's a really great place for us to start
• 1:04:29
  wrapping up, sure what's next for you creatively as a theater.
• 1:04:36
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: So I've been focusing much more on
• 1:04:38
  photography and really been leaning into this mixed media
• 1:04:43
  because I laugh and I think about how many like, blessings
• 1:04:51
  and adventures have come from, like, a practical need, like, so
• 1:04:58
  you know, embrace. Waste the practical, because sometimes
• 1:05:01
  it'll take you on an adventure. So a lot of time, you know,
• 1:05:07
  just, you know, getting into printmaking in this mixed media
• 1:05:10
  stuff, it was really about like, I was like, I want to have more
• 1:05:16
  physical prints of my work, but I don't always want to have to
• 1:05:20
  be, like, framed and mounted in like, exhibition type thing, you
• 1:05:24
  know, and I want to use it. We'll just print them out of
• 1:05:26
  four by six or five by seven somewhere. But, like, I don't
• 1:05:29
  know, I was like, it's like, I wanted something more than that,
• 1:05:32
  but not quite like, you know, it's gotta be framed in the
• 1:05:36
  gallery type thing. And I was on IG, and I saw, like, photo
• 1:05:42
  transfers that you can do with photo transfer medium, and,
• 1:05:45
  like, you just print it out on printer paper, and you do that.
• 1:05:49
  And I was like, well, shoot. I can do that. And so I started
• 1:05:52
  doing that. Had a, you know, and then just at the same, you know,
• 1:05:58
  a few days later, my local library was like, because
• 1:06:02
  they're renovating, was like, tossing out, or left out a ton
• 1:06:08
  of old ebony magazines. And I'm like, What shit I'm taking all
• 1:06:11
  Casey Fatchett: then do stuff with this, right?
• 1:06:14
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: And so doing that, and then talking to
• 1:06:17
  my friend Dominique, and she was like, oh, have you ever, like,
• 1:06:22
  heard of like, gel plate transfers? And I was like, no.
• 1:06:28
  And she sent me a video of it. And I was like, Oh, you don't
• 1:06:31
  messed up. And so I've been really doing a lot of these
• 1:06:34
  prints, and it's cool to like, I've had, I won't call this, you
• 1:06:39
  know, it's not a crisis of sorts. But I'm like, well, am I
• 1:06:43
  like now, is photography just the thing that I'm doing to get
• 1:06:48
  to these prints and things like, what is that about? But then I
• 1:06:52
  was like, No, photography is a beginning and end unto itself.
• 1:06:57
  Like it can it can just be like, boop, you print it, it's fine,
• 1:06:59
  or you can do so much more with it. And it's really, it's, it's
• 1:07:02
  been cool to reimagine and print and do any number of things
• 1:07:09
  with, you know, with the base of, like, Hey, I made this
• 1:07:14
  portrait. I made this photograph. So, you know, not
• 1:07:17
  only do I not have to worry about copyright, I'm getting to
• 1:07:20
  use my own work and repurpose it in ways that has really been
• 1:07:22
  interesting. It could
• 1:07:24
  Casey Fatchett: have a life beyond right?
• 1:07:27
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: And so I've been really jamming on that
• 1:07:31
  recently. There's a few projects that want I got to put a button.
• 1:07:35
  The project I talked about were just ego came in. I got to just
• 1:07:39
  put a button on that, just because I just, like, need to,
• 1:07:42
  and I don't say that, like, badly, but I, you know, I
• 1:07:45
  approach it as, like, I gotta finish this, so that it's
• 1:07:48
  finished, so that I can move on to other projects that I really
• 1:07:52
  want to get into. Someone even comes into, like, just being,
• 1:07:57
  you know, excuses to have conversations with people, or to
• 1:08:03
  explore interest. You know, like, I something I want to do
• 1:08:07
  at some point is, is, is do, like, documentary photography,
• 1:08:11
  of of, of, like stage hands in, like technical crew and like,
• 1:08:17
  you know, people are actors. I'm like, shoot. I'll turn somebody
• 1:08:20
  into an actor. I can't turn nobody into a stage manager. I
• 1:08:22
  can turn I didn't turn away in a light designer. And, you know,
• 1:08:24
  those the sort of back of house who is just the lifeblood of a
• 1:08:28
  production in so many different respects. So that's, you know,
• 1:08:31
  that's sitting
• 1:08:32
  Casey Fatchett: at the board, or, yeah, hanging lights.
• 1:08:35
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: Because I, you know, I do it at the theater
• 1:08:37
  enough. I'm like, Man, I'd love to do this in in other
• 1:08:40
  theatrical spaces. Then, you know, you know, applying for
• 1:08:46
  grants and doing all that good stuff, because you just, again,
• 1:08:50
  I don't, you know, I I'm being more limited in my client work
• 1:08:56
  in terms of session offerings and things of that nature. And
• 1:08:59
  not because I'm, like, against I'm too good or too cool. It's
• 1:09:02
  just, you know, I think about, I have to love how photography
• 1:09:11
  makes me feel. It's really important to me. Like that part,
• 1:09:15
  like I can go do plenty of other things, and I'm just like, I
• 1:09:18
  don't care how this makes me feel, or like I can feel neutral
• 1:09:21
  about this, but I have to love how making photographs makes me
• 1:09:26
  feel, and if I don't love how it makes me feel, one probably not
• 1:09:29
  going to do very good work. But more important than that, I
• 1:09:35
  will, I will infringe upon the love that I have for
• 1:09:40
  photography. My friend Polly, she's she was so on point. She
• 1:09:45
  says, it's about, I don't know, last year, year and a half ago,
• 1:09:49
  she was talking to her mom about a photograph I'd made of of her,
• 1:09:54
  you know, and her and her boyfriend. And it wasn't a
• 1:09:56
  state, you know, it was candid. They were just often their
• 1:09:58
  thing. I made the photograph. From, you know, across the
• 1:10:01
  lobby. This is after a show, the first show that she was a lead
• 1:10:05
  stage manager of at the theater company where she works. And she
• 1:10:13
  was explaining to her mom about the photograph, you know,
• 1:10:15
  photography is Jonathan's love language. And I was like, that's
• 1:10:22
  a bar right there, because, and that's, and that's really what
• 1:10:25
  it is. So if, if I don't feel that, I that's just no good for
• 1:10:33
  me, you know what I mean? And so I've, you know, I'm working on
• 1:10:38
  figuring out what that means. Because for for a while, I was
• 1:10:41
  like, it's kind of fine art, but I do client facing work, and
• 1:10:44
  it's down there. But really it's like, I want to do conceptual
• 1:10:46
  and fine art work. I'm certainly open to doing editorial, if you
• 1:10:50
  know, fashion that's offered, and things of that nature. I I
• 1:10:56
  have to be into the idea in the premise, you know,
• 1:11:01
  Casey Fatchett: there's and like, this is something that
• 1:11:03
  I've been able to do over the years when it comes to something
• 1:11:07
  that just doesn't like, when it comes to like things like more
• 1:11:13
  corporate work that that I simply like, oh, well, you know,
• 1:11:17
  how do you feel creative about that? Sort of like, I get into
• 1:11:21
  it into a way, like a mindset of what does the one of the things
• 1:11:25
  that I feel very important to me is, like making people feel good
• 1:11:29
  about themselves, yes. So even, like, I'm gonna take pictures,
• 1:11:33
  if I'm taking pictures in a corporate event, like, I want to
• 1:11:37
  make take pictures of these. Like the the impetus for me here
• 1:11:41
  is to take pictures of these people that are going to make
• 1:11:45
  them feel better about themselves, or, if it's
• 1:11:46
  something I'm doing, like, for, you know, a charitable cause,
• 1:11:50
  whatever I'm like, I'm want to help further this message. I
• 1:11:57
  want to take photos that are, like, really going to spread
• 1:11:59
  this like, I do a lot of work with this agency that gets books
• 1:12:04
  into children's hands as quickly as possible, like when they're
• 1:12:08
  young, like me, like getting them, like, regardless of their
• 1:12:12
  economic status, like, how much development helps. Like, having
• 1:12:15
  them have a book that in like this charity, charity doing
• 1:12:21
  like, work, like, work. Like, a lot of these people, like, this
• 1:12:22
  is the first book The family has had, you know, like, they just
• 1:12:26
  don't, like, can't afford books, or whatever it's like, and how
• 1:12:28
  much it changes their life. So, like, it's really super
• 1:12:31
  important to me to, like, find that that is a creative images
• 1:12:35
  for even something that some people will be like, it's just
• 1:12:38
  like, a corporate event and whatever. Like, it's not really
• 1:12:41
  like I can find the spark in there that really, like, gets me
• 1:12:48
  right,
• 1:12:50
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: and that's in and I love how you phrase
• 1:12:52
  that, because I think it's, again, it's not one of those
• 1:12:54
  things of like that work, because beneath me or an army,
• 1:12:57
  it's just like I have to be able to find the spark, you know, in
• 1:13:01
  some in, you know, I know what I you know, my mentor was like,
• 1:13:06
  you make a list of what you want to do and what you're willing to
• 1:13:10
  do. And I'm like, I think that that's very important. I think
• 1:13:12
  that a lot of people don't necessarily always do that. It's
• 1:13:15
  like, you got to have, it's both, you know, yeah. And so
• 1:13:21
  even for those, you know, corporate events or corporate
• 1:13:25
  gigs or things of that nature, it's like, yeah, I have to be
• 1:13:28
  able to bring some kind of artfulness to it, or feel like
• 1:13:31
  there's, there's a connection that can be made in the
• 1:13:34
  instances where it doesn't feel like that. It's like, you know
• 1:13:36
  what? That's not for me. But you know, yes, the ability to your
• 1:13:41
  point, that ability to, like, what can I tether to here?
• 1:13:45
  That's always the question. That's why I say to people, I'm
• 1:13:46
  like, when in doubt, I'd rather have the conversation than not.
• 1:13:50
  Please don't assume, like, oh, well, you wouldn't do this. I'm
• 1:13:55
  like, listen, I told you, like, I'm giving you a general
• 1:13:57
  ballpark. Like, yeah, it's like, doesn't, doesn't interest me,
• 1:14:00
  but one, it's an honor for anybody to think like, I don't
• 1:14:05
  hear what anybody says. If somebody thinks of you to do
• 1:14:08
  certain kind of work, even if ultimately it's not like a good
• 1:14:11
  fit, if somebody thought of you like, you show that some some
• 1:14:17
  modicum of respect, yeah.
• 1:14:18
  Casey Fatchett: Like, just like, Oh, thank you for thinking of
• 1:14:20
  me. I've done that many times where I've said, like, Oh, I'm
• 1:14:23
  not the right person for this job. I know the right person for
• 1:14:26
  this job you should go talk to so. And that's just good karma
• 1:14:29
  in general.
• 1:14:30
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: And I thank you for saying that,
• 1:14:31
  because that's that's some of the weirdest thing that I don't
• 1:14:35
  like is like, Listen, if I'm not the person, but I think I know
• 1:14:41
  who that person is, right?
• 1:14:44
  Casey Fatchett: I'm gonna tell you, right? I'm doing you. I'm
• 1:14:47
  serving you better by, like, giving you the right person for
• 1:14:50
  the job, than I am by taking the job, not enjoying it, doing a
• 1:14:55
  poor job of it, like, and that's the thing, like I've mentioned,
• 1:14:59
  pre. Obviously on the show, like, where, even with weddings,
• 1:15:03
  where people will come to me and be like, I need like, and I can
• 1:15:05
  tell what they need, they need to type A personality, and
• 1:15:08
  somebody's going to come in there and bark directions, like
• 1:15:10
  I've done theater direction I'm capable of getting, but that is
• 1:15:13
  just not my personality and not something I want to do. Like, I
• 1:15:17
  can, I can manage, like, a few like drunken groomsmen, and, you
• 1:15:21
  know, humorously, get them in line when I need to, but I like,
• 1:15:25
  I don't want to spend 12 hours shouting at people. And I can
• 1:15:29
  tell that that's what these people need. And I'm like, Hey,
• 1:15:31
  I am not the guy for that job, like, but this person I know
• 1:15:35
  thrives on that and can give you exactly what you need.
• 1:15:40
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: And that ability to say no or put up
• 1:15:43
  boundaries or, you know, point people in a direction, you know,
• 1:15:48
  I think it's so and again, a thing I'm still learning. So,
• 1:15:52
  like, don't get me wrong, but it's, it's such an important
• 1:15:56
  thing of like, you know, that thing of like, well, if I say no
• 1:16:02
  to this one, there's not going to be any more asks. You know,
• 1:16:05
  like, we kind of get that thing of like, well, if I, if I say
• 1:16:07
  no, they're never going to come back to me. Nobody's gonna
• 1:16:10
  nobody's gonna come it's like, no, that's not true. Like, in
• 1:16:12
  really learning to be like, Nah, like, I said no to this for the
• 1:16:17
  reasons that I, whatever the reasons were, and other
• 1:16:21
  opportunities will present themselves, but I think that's
• 1:16:25
  come to a point that you were kind of bringing up, is move
• 1:16:34
  with good energy and good intentions in really, in life in
• 1:16:38
  general, but in the communities that you are existing. It's
• 1:16:41
  weird, like seeing people who move nastily or selfishly or
• 1:16:48
  it's just like, and again, you can't say that it limits
• 1:16:51
  success, because we, you and I both know people who are
• 1:16:56
  indecent, people who are successful. So like, like, I'm
• 1:17:00
  not gonna sit here and be like, if you aren't nice, you won't
• 1:17:04
  get things like that. Ain't true. That ain't true. But you
• 1:17:09
  know, whether it's, you know, spiritual vibe, laws of
• 1:17:14
  attraction, or whatever, I do think that you get back what you
• 1:17:18
  put out and and when you you know, and it's not about when
• 1:17:24
  you're up, yeah, it's when you're down and you need a
• 1:17:28
  break. That's when people remember, yeah, like, oh, you
• 1:17:34
  need, oh, I remember, yeah.
• 1:17:36
  Casey Fatchett: I think that the one of the things that has
• 1:17:38
  helped me like, in that sense of like felt made me feel more
• 1:17:42
  confident about like, saying no to jobs, and feeling better
• 1:17:45
  about it personally is like the damage, like a job that I know
• 1:17:49
  that is then like, just going to destroy me, either emotionally
• 1:17:53
  or physically, whatever it is not worth the money that I'm
• 1:17:56
  gonna get paid Like I am better off not doing that job, whether,
• 1:18:00
  like, you know, like, think about the money reason, where
• 1:18:03
  people are like, I should do it because I need the money. And
• 1:18:07
  you're like, Yeah, but if I do it, and I, like, I had a job
• 1:18:10
  recently I was up for there was, like, a big, big, big, big, big,
• 1:18:14
  big job. It was like, a week long thing, yeah, and I gave
• 1:18:18
  them a quote, and they were like, well, we also want to add
• 1:18:21
  video to it. And you're like, I'm going to be, like,
• 1:18:24
  responsible for and our budget is less than half of that. And
• 1:18:28
  I'm like, Nope, still, still a big sum of money. But it's like,
• 1:18:32
  no, I can't. Like, I just, and also they wanted, like, photos
• 1:18:35
  from each day edited the next day. And I'm like, No, I can't.
• 1:18:39
  There's no way. Yeah, I'm gonna be able to do it for that price.
• 1:18:43
  Like, that's just like, that, that just, and I thought to
• 1:18:46
  myself, like, somebody, some young kid out there, is going to
• 1:18:50
  take this job because they want the job, and they're like, Oh,
• 1:18:53
  that's a lot of money, and they're going to destroy
• 1:18:56
  themselves because they're young and like able to do that's what
• 1:19:00
  you do when you're starting out. You do you over commit to
• 1:19:04
  things, and you kind of that you learned your boundaries. But the
• 1:19:07
  thing is, over the years, I have noticed that the more like if I
• 1:19:11
  whether it's a wedding client or a corporate client, or whatever
• 1:19:15
  it is, I have noticed that a lot of those people come back to me
• 1:19:19
  even years later and say, you know, what really stuck with me
• 1:19:22
  was the fact that you said that you weren't the right person for
• 1:19:26
  this job. Wedding clients will refer me to other people will
• 1:19:30
  tell like they I would like the person that they hired it's not
• 1:19:33
  the first person on their list that they recommend, right?
• 1:19:37
  Because they think back, like, oh, well, you know what, if he's
• 1:19:41
  not right for the job, he will recommend somebody who is right
• 1:19:44
  for the job. Like, so that's even like, that's better than
• 1:19:48
  just like, sending them somebody who, you know might not think
• 1:19:51
  that way and will give the this like, is considerate and
• 1:19:55
  thinking about. What their needs are. Corporate clients,
• 1:19:58
  absolutely same thing. I've turned down jobs where I was
• 1:20:01
  just like, You know what? I can't do this. I just can't
• 1:20:05
  handle what you need. There were times earlier in my career where
• 1:20:09
  I was just like, I don't have the system for like, you were
• 1:20:12
  talking about the team, like the behind the scenes, people to
• 1:20:16
  like, be doing all the work to efficiently do the thing, and
• 1:20:19
  I'd be like, Thank you for really, like, for reaching out
• 1:20:23
  to me. But at this point in time, I am not, I'm not in that
• 1:20:26
  place. But then people come back to me, you're later, and be
• 1:20:30
  like, are you in that place now? And I'll be like, yeah,
• 1:20:33
  actually, I am, because you made me think about it, and I got the
• 1:20:37
  things together for it. And now, Sure, let's go and do that.
• 1:20:40
  Like, you know, I have a drone operator. I have, you know,
• 1:20:44
  assistants, I have video people. I have, like, those things for
• 1:20:48
  those types of jobs that I can, like, I can get back and pull
• 1:20:51
  that all together for you. And they're like, great, like, we
• 1:20:55
  really appreciated that you didn't waste our time, or, like,
• 1:20:58
  take a job that you couldn't do, and, you know, waste our money
• 1:21:02
  and time. you move. How you move is critical
• 1:21:05
  and related. Last question, what advice would you give to your
• 1:21:09
  younger self?
• 1:21:16
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: But I would give to my younger self,
• 1:21:24
  based on our conversation today, I'd really just say, like, be
• 1:21:31
  very clear about what you want to be precious about. You know,
• 1:21:36
  said another way, most of the things that you're precious
• 1:21:39
  about, it's not deep like that, at least when it comes to the
• 1:21:43
  craft. When it comes to this, you know, don't let you know.
• 1:21:46
  Maybe another way of saying it, don't let your ego get in the
• 1:21:49
  way the work. Don't let your ego get in the way of the work.
• 1:21:55
  Because there's you're, you're, you're taking away
• 1:21:59
  opportunities. Ego takes away more opportunities than it
• 1:22:02
  creates.
• 1:22:09
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  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: Hey. Now for my favorite part of the
• 1:24:32
  show, what's that? Say? Useless information. This is always
• 1:24:38
  death.
• 1:24:42
  Casey Fatchett: Jonathan, Oreo, I don't know if you're a fan of
• 1:24:47
  Oreos. Made a lot of cookies, yeah, over the years. At this
• 1:24:54
  point, how far do you think the. A pile of Oreos. If you stack
• 1:25:02
  them individually, how far that would reach?
• 1:25:14
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: I am. I'm gonna say to the moon,
• 1:25:17
  Casey Fatchett: to the moon and back five times, what? Five times
• 1:25:25
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: Nice.
• 1:25:26
  Casey Fatchett: That's a lot of Oreos. When you realize how far
• 1:25:30
  away the moon is, and you go, that's, it's a really long way
• 1:25:36
  away, and back and back.
• 1:25:38
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: So it's around five round trippers.
• 1:25:40
  Yeah? Wow. I just took, I just took down a the kids, you know,
• 1:25:46
  they have the Oreo ice cream sandwiches, yeah? Or, like,
• 1:25:49
  they've had them for a while, but, like, I indulged the other
• 1:25:52
  week, like I tried to hide them from my kids, man, but they
• 1:25:55
  found one, and so you didn't get one. That's right, it's been a
• 1:26:01
  pleasure.
• 1:26:01
  Casey Fatchett: Where can people find you, find your work and
• 1:26:05
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: find the work on IG, at J, pits Wiley,
• 1:26:10
  yeah. At J, pitch wise to handle the website. J pitswhile
• 1:26:16
  lee.com, I'm on LinkedIn too. I But find the on IG or on the
• 1:26:24
  website first. I'm not again. I listen LinkedIn is cool, but I
• 1:26:27
  just I'm more likely to be see a message or whatever on on IG or
• 1:26:33
  through the website. So you know, I am but an email away
• 1:26:39
  most of that.
• 1:26:41
  Casey Fatchett: Thank you so much for coming on and for being
• 1:26:45
  I mean, we had, we had a little trouble scheduling, but, like,
• 1:26:47
  you know, it took time. But like, being dedicated to finding
• 1:26:52
  a time I appreciate.
• 1:26:52
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: Well, yeah, Nah, man. Well, let me say
• 1:26:55
  that, like, I I'm a big believer in trying to show up and
• 1:26:59
  support, not just honestly, people who reach out and support
• 1:27:04
  me, but like I see what the show is doing and see how you move. I
• 1:27:08
  see how you exist in this space of photography and on the public
• 1:27:13
  square. And that's something that that's my persistence is
• 1:27:18
  very much a testament to who you are and how you move through the
• 1:27:23
  world and in your values and your character. So I was just
• 1:27:30
  feeling bad. I was like, Man, this is a good dude. I'm out
• 1:27:32
  here. Just like, you know, and I wasn't ignoring, believe me. It
• 1:27:35
  was like, you know, life does all those things, but I hope
• 1:27:38
  that you understand that it was very much a response, in a
• 1:27:45
  response to, and a reflection of how you know that you're good
• 1:27:49
  people and we're, you know, we're, we're all like, you know,
• 1:27:53
  lucky to have it's good. It's good to be reminded that there
• 1:27:57
  are good people and, you know, and when good people show
• 1:28:01
  themselves, you show up for them. And so even if
• 1:28:03
  Casey Fatchett: it takes however long, it doesn't even if it
• 1:28:07
  takes a
• 1:28:07
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: you show up for good people. So I just, I
• 1:28:09
  guess I was just trying to do my part.
• 1:28:11
  Casey Fatchett: Thanks, man. I really appreciate that you're
• 1:28:13
  making me all Misty.
• 1:28:16
  Jonathan Pitts-Wiley: All right, Casey, man,
• 1:28:22
  Casey Fatchett: welcome back. I hope you enjoyed my conversation
• 1:28:24
  with Jonathan Pitts Wiley. You can find links to Jonathan's
• 1:28:27
  work and learn more about him in the Episode Notes. Be sure to go
• 1:28:30
  follow and while you're following, make sure you follow
• 1:28:33
  the nerdy photographer at the nerdy photo on all major social
• 1:28:37
  media platforms that's at the nerdy photo, no dots,
• 1:28:41
  underscores or dashes. Don't miss the high jinks or the low
• 1:28:44
  Jinks that take place between episodes.
• 1:28:47
  Unknown: Yeah. No, no.
• 1:28:53
  Casey Fatchett: I think the class has moved beyond what I'm
• 1:28:55
  physically capable of, because everyone else seems to have
• 1:29:02
  folded themselves into a sort of cube until next time, everybody
• 1:29:07
  stay safe and stay nerdy.
• 1:29:20
  Unknown: Been back to town. Who's your heart been beating
• 1:29:25
  about you better. Get better. Get better. Get better. Listen,
• 1:29:28
  you.