Latest / The Nerdy Photographer Podcast / 135 - Failing Forward: Embracing Mistakes to Grow as a Photographer

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135 - Failing Forward: Embracing Mistakes to Grow as a Photographer · The Nerdy Photographer Podcast

0:04
Casey Fatchett: There's a way through this. Our recent
0:08
experience would tell us otherwise. Fib. This is what we
0:12
call a teachable moment. Hey, welcome to the nerdy
0:16
photographer podcast. I'm your host. Casey Fatchett. If you've
0:19
never listened to the show before, welcome if you have
0:22
listened to the show before, welcome back. In addition to
0:26
providing entertaining and informative photography related
0:28
info, I also go on adventures with the crew of the starship
0:31
Fibonacci. Right now, we're trying to navigate through a
0:34
cosmic dust cloud. This is generating massive amounts of
0:37
electricity. We have to find our way out without getting fried.
0:42
That would be optimal. We just have to learn from our previous
0:47
mistakes. You know, on a similar note, we're discussing how to
0:50
use your photography mistakes to propel you forward on your
0:53
journey with our guest on this episode. JC Carey, that
0:57
conversation right after the break. Any thoughts on how to
1:01
solve our dilemma, yes, but I need more data on those
1:06
electrical discharges. Send out the probe.
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2:07
Hello and welcome to the nerdy photographer podcast. I'm your
2:10
host, Casey Fatchett, and I'm here today with JC, Carey. JC,
2:15
thank you very much for being here.
2:16
JC Carey: Really excited to be here. I really appreciated you
2:19
giving me the offer. This is, this is, uh, the first real
2:23
photography pod podcast I've done. I've done some related to
2:26
my music stuff that were more music based, and my photography
2:30
was the end of it. You know, I don't play any music. I just
2:32
shoot the pictures. But they wanted to talk about my
2:34
reminiscings. But this is the first time I've ever been on one
2:37
of these to just do photos.
2:38
Casey Fatchett: I think it's gonna be fun. Before we get
2:40
started, we're gonna do the dice breaker in a roll of dice. It is
2:45
an 11. What is your favorite weird smell?
2:58
JC Carey: I grew up, I don't, haven't done it in years, but my
3:02
father would take me to Englishtown, to the racetrack
3:04
and, you know, and I grew out of that age, you know, as we got
3:09
older and my dad passed away, like I no longer was into all
3:12
that, but that, that small, that smell of burnt rubber, like will
3:15
always when I do smell it will snap me back to better memories
3:19
of being a kid rather than crappy ones. Yeah.
3:22
Casey Fatchett: So I think it's interesting with that. I think
3:24
it's interesting how, like, I think that smells, music, things
3:30
like that, your senses have such a way of transporting you, oh,
3:35
absolutely somewhere like and you can just, it can be years
3:39
since you've thought of something, and you're just
3:42
automatically thrown back to a place in a time. I think that
3:46
good photography does that. I think that, yeah, there are
3:50
smells, there are things that my dad was a fire investigator, so
3:55
sometimes just the smell of a fire can, like, bring me back to
4:00
places,
4:03
JC Carey: I totally get you. Yeah,
4:04
Casey Fatchett: so let's give a short synopsis of your
4:10
photography journey for our listeners who may be unfamiliar
4:14
with you.
4:15
JC Carey: Okay, I've always shot, you know, I think, like a
4:19
lot of people, my dad got me a used f2 when I was a kid, like,
4:26
I had taken a class at school and seventh grade or something,
4:32
and I was into it. I was like, this pretty cool. And so he gets
4:37
me the camera and those, you know, I wish I still had it. I
4:39
don't. Fast forward like I was okay, you know, like I was
4:47
pretty good, but scared to take chances. I didn't have any money
4:50
ever, so all my exposures were like this. I was scared of
4:53
lighting, you know? I was scared of doing anything besides taking
4:57
a good picture. I was really not, pretty scared of taking
4:59
care. Pictures of people. I'm being perfectly honest. I think
5:02
a lot of people start out that way. It was a lot of animals, a
5:05
lot of landscapes, a lot of cityscapes and things like that.
5:09
And if you fast forward a bit, ended up shooting. It doesn't
5:15
make a difference. I mean, I moved to Canon at one point
5:18
because I was a miserable, miserable manual folks here and
5:22
I had great vision until recently. This is a relatively
5:26
Casey Fatchett: new thing. Same we're both wearing glasses for
5:29
since this is an audio they were both, I am experiencing the same
5:32
thing.
5:33
JC Carey: Yeah, it's just the about, about 4243 the close up
5:37
fell right off the like a cliff, yep. So, so I ended up shooting
5:41
cannon, because at that time, Cannon had better auto focus. I
5:46
was I started to get a little good, and I started getting
5:49
interested in lighting. And, you know, Joe McNally was really the
5:53
guy that inspired me to pick up lights. And you know, the whole
5:59
speed lighting thing, you know, was something that I thought I
6:01
could afford. I did do a class in the middle, which I talk
6:05
about from from fear to flash, where I won't, I won't name the
6:08
place, because I don't want to shame them, because they're
6:11
pretty well known. But, uh, it was a miserable class, and it
6:13
influenced everything that I've done since I teach the opposite
6:17
of the way that they taught me, because it didn't really offer
6:20
me anything. So I just fell into a journey where I constantly
6:26
failed and constantly tried to get better at things, which I
6:29
know we're going to talk
6:30
Casey Fatchett: about, yeah, but, I mean, we talked about
6:32
this, you know, via email, and just talking, like, about
6:36
failing forward. And I think that's something that we need
6:39
to, like, delineate, because I was mentioning it to my wife,
6:42
and she was like, Wait, that could be confused with failing
6:44
upward. And since we're both two white guys, you know, like we're
6:48
not talking about failing upward, we're talking about and
6:51
I think that you brought up a good something that I shared in
6:56
that my photographic journey was when I started out, I was afraid
7:00
of flash. I was totally afraid of it was like, too complicated.
7:04
And I come from a science background, and it's just like,
7:07
it just seemed like it was too complex to for me. And I think
7:11
that I there was a mindset of young and arrogant, where I was
7:21
like, I'm I don't need it. I don't need flash. I don't need
7:26
to do that. And the same thing, you gravitate towards subjects
7:29
that don't need it, and you're like, Okay, I'm gonna, I'm not
7:33
gonna shoot flash, because I don't need flash. But yeah, the
7:39
failing forward, like, what does that mean to you? And how has it
7:44
helped your mindset?
7:47
JC Carey: Your wife is wise. Obviously, we so film folk, for
7:54
me, is taking on a bunch of different things. But as far as
7:56
the photography goes, I didn't go to school for it. I didn't,
8:02
you know there was, you know? And I tell people all the time,
8:06
and they're like, Oh, don't you miss film or whatever. I'm like,
8:08
nope. Because for me, I really didn't become a photographer. I
8:12
didn't go from somebody who took photos to somebody who made
8:15
photos, which is an important delineation to me, until digital
8:19
happened, and that instant feedback that that no longer
8:24
being scared to take a chance and get an incorrect exposure.
8:29
You know, to this day, I don't spend any time looking at my
8:33
histogram, not because I don't think that that's good form, but
8:36
because I shoot such a flashy style and such a contrasty,
8:40
dramatic style, that the histogram would often be wrong,
8:42
right? It would tell me that I was buried one way or the other.
8:45
So. But right from the start, I had had made this decision that
8:54
I was going to be good at this, you know, I was going to be good
8:56
at it. I saw that people could do it. And I was like, All
9:01
right, I can do this. And like I started to say, haka wizard, I
9:06
think to a certain extent, had a little bit of a influence on me
9:10
getting forward, because once they came with what we call the
9:15
TT fives at the time, the TT one as a cannon shooter, I did not
9:19
have the creative lighting system that Joe McNally used
9:22
with with Nikon, and so I couldn't do high speed sync with
9:26
their flashes off camera. I couldn't there was a lot of
9:28
things I couldn't do. And once that was available to me, all of
9:32
a sudden, it all clicked. It all it didn't click right away. I
9:36
don't want to make it sound like all of a sudden I was some
9:39
genius.
9:39
Casey Fatchett: But the things that you wanted to capture were
9:43
now available to you to capture.
9:45
JC Carey: It became less that the camera was telling me what I
9:47
could do and me telling the camera what I wanted it to do.
9:50
Because, you know, sync speed to me has always been like this
9:53
great enemy, and I shoot within sync plenty now, but the idea
9:57
that I had to shoot within a certain speed, or I had to
9:59
shoot. Did a certain aperture because I wanted a certain
10:02
outcome rather than me making those decisions. So always I
10:06
would pay attention. And the other reason, the other great
10:08
part about digital before I because I know I tend to be a
10:11
tangent guy. Same was that having that ability to look back
10:16
at my EXIF data and go, Ah, all right, so I did this, and I did
10:23
that, and going back, and, you know, even later on, once since
10:26
once a Lightroom came into my life where I could look through
10:30
all the pictures and go, How many did I shoot at this shutter
10:33
speed or this F stop and go, Hmm, maybe that was a mistake,
10:37
or maybe that was good, you know. And I do find that I've
10:40
stopped down a lot more these days than I used to, and it's
10:43
because of looking at it and going your stream wide open all
10:45
the time, and it wasn't to your benefit. Maybe it's really
10:49
influenced so failing forward to me, just to get back to it was,
10:52
it was this process of continually having shoots where
10:58
I was maybe happy with the happy accident, and then trying to
11:04
figure out how I made that one. And, you know, because at the
11:07
beginning, if I shot 100 pictures and three of them were
11:11
good, I was pretty stoked. I was like, you know, it was like,
11:14
yay. And but I was always, I preach not being critical in
11:20
front of my subject of myself, but being critical of myself,
11:24
right? Being critical of not in a you're terrible, but in a what
11:30
could I do to make this better? What do I want to do the next
11:32
time? What do I want to do? What different tool would make this
11:36
better? What difference technique would make this
11:38
better? What technique that I thought was an accident or a
11:41
mistake in the past would apply to this and make me have
11:46
something that really works
11:47
Casey Fatchett: right, like, seeing something that you did
11:49
that you really liked and you weren't necessarily aiming for,
11:53
and going, like, Okay, what did I do here that, you know, got me
11:58
to a place that I really like? Like, how do I, how do I
12:01
recreate that and be able to, like, use that to my advantage
12:06
moving forward? I think that a lot of I think that a lot of
12:10
people are afraid of, quote, unquote, making mistakes.
12:15
JC Carey: And I based my whole career on it. Quite honestly,
12:19
it's, I love. I deal with a lot of photographers as you do and
12:24
as you know, and sometimes I see people that can make a whole
12:29
living off of doing one thing. And I wish I was that person you
12:32
know, that they just consistently can do it, and
12:35
it's, it's the same shot. And this isn't being critical of
12:39
those people. I'm like, that's amazing that they've managed to
12:42
be so good at one thing. I'm not so good at anything that I can
12:47
do that. So I'm always trying to integrate, how can I make this
12:50
or that work, and how can I take this and apply it towards this
12:53
other thing that I'm passionate about, or this thing, and maybe
12:58
to my own self protection. Maybe I should have focused on one
13:00
thing. But, you know,
13:01
Casey Fatchett: yeah, I mean, there's, there are moments where
13:03
I, I'm a person who I know what you're talking about, and I've
13:08
met, talked to, interviewed, some people who would use, like,
13:11
the one thing so well, they're very, extraordinarily good at
13:14
it. And it's, it's kind of like, okay, Wow, that's incredible. I
13:18
that is not how my mind works. I'm a person who wants to have
13:20
as many tools in the toolbox as I can, and because I don't know
13:26
what sort of situation I'm going to be in, or, like you said, it
13:29
might apply to a different type of photography than what I'm
13:32
doing in this moment. And it's sort of like I want to lock this
13:34
away, like, Oh, if I happen to be in a spot where I'm going to
13:38
do this, you know, having this, you know, knowledge, tool,
13:44
whatever it is that can help me when I'm in that situation, is,
13:49
to me, that scratches the part of the brain, where the and how
13:53
I personally work. I think that there are a lot of people out
13:56
there who are so hyper focused on, like, I have to produce the
14:03
highest quality image. And they've just, like, arbitrarily
14:06
determined what that means in their head, and they're not
14:10
willing to. It's weird because David Lynch, when we're
14:12
recording this, David Lynch just passed away yesterday,
14:15
yesterday, and I've been watching a lot of clips of him,
14:19
and one of the things that he talked about in one of the clips
14:22
I revisited was he gets really mad about schedules modern film
14:30
sets, and saying, you know, like they don't allow enough time for
14:34
me to get dreamy, which to him, meant like to play and find,
14:39
like, Okay, we've got what I set out to do, but I want to have
14:42
time to play and do another thing, yep, and I think that
14:46
there's a lot of I mean, obviously we have deadlines, and
14:50
sometimes there's shoot restrictions and what we're
14:52
going to do, but having that time, I think that one of the
14:56
things that I've learned is, if not, I don't know about you, but
14:59
you know. Having that time to be able to do something and just
15:02
play around for a while and maybe find something that is
15:05
completely different than what we were aiming for to start
15:08
with.
15:09
JC Carey: No, I mean, I think that me and you have met through
15:12
me being in a teaching place, but not, I think, at class. But
15:18
I always preach that idea that all right, let's get the shot
15:22
that we thought. But then now let's, let's turn that one off.
15:25
Let's turn this one on. Let's change our F stop. Let's, let's
15:28
see what else would happen around here, you know. And let's
15:31
try to see if we get our model to do something else that they
15:34
we weren't planning on. And that's always a really important
15:39
part of not only for me to keep it fresh, but to I've, again,
15:45
the idea of the happy accident, where it's not really an
15:47
accident, because you forced it through this picking, you know,
15:51
like you've got a, you know, an egg, and, you know, it's hard
15:56
boiled, and you're peeling apart little bits of it to get it to
15:59
the way you want. Or maybe it's better, like revealing a
16:01
sculpture, probably better. But, you know, just chipping away and
16:06
chipping away, it looked really cool the way it was. And
16:08
sometimes you're going to ship too much, and sometimes you're
16:11
gonna go, that didn't work, and it's okay, don't let that be the
16:16
thing. I think that almost everybody who's ever been to a
16:21
live shoot with me has now, at this point, the people laugh at
16:24
me about it, because every student will sometimes go, Hey,
16:27
how's this look? I'll go, has looked to you, because that's
16:31
what matters, right? And I don't teach, I teach process rather
16:36
than recipe, because I don't think recipe, you know, maybe in
16:42
baking, recipe is big, but the rest you know, because you have
16:44
to follow a certain you know thing to get things to rise and
16:47
all that. But in the real world, I'm like, everybody's got it
16:50
going to have to find their own flavor, and everybody's going to
16:53
have to find that spot where what they're looking at makes
16:57
them happy, makes them feel fulfilled. And then, and that's
17:01
going to change with time. Like, I look back at old pictures that
17:04
I thought were amazing, I hate them, and vice versa, I look at
17:08
pictures that I hated, and now I'm like, that was pretty good.
17:11
Like, I you know, what was I thinking then, yeah,
17:14
Casey Fatchett: and I think that, to go off your baking
17:17
analogy, I think that it's it. There is a there's a process. To
17:23
bake. I love to cook, whatever. There's a process, but then you
17:26
spice according to your own taste. Like that is the the and
17:31
it's the same with taking photos. You like, what am I?
17:34
What am I going for? What are like? You don't have to like.
17:37
It's one of those. Yeah, some people, who I would consider it
17:41
a failure in teaching, is to say, like, you have to do it
17:46
exactly this way. Anybody who speaks in absolutes, I would, I
17:49
would be a little bit skeptical of,
17:52
JC Carey: yeah, that was very much like I told you, the very
17:54
first class that I took, and the only class that I've really
17:57
taken, you know, I've been to a lot of workshops over the years,
17:59
mostly where I'm just kind of listening in and soaking in
18:03
people that we sponsor when I was at other companies or things
18:06
like that. And but as far as actual class like, part of the
18:10
big problem was that I walked in and they were like, All right,
18:12
put the lights at 45 and 45 put this one to to to half power.
18:16
Put this one to a 16th power, because we're gonna go with
18:19
three to one ratio, and the lights have to be exactly this.
18:22
And I want you to shoot F 11 at 200 of a second, and this is how
18:26
you make a picture. And I'm like, All right, so when I go to
18:29
replicate this, if I don't have the same space, same section,
18:32
the same lens, the same camera, the same everything, I can't do
18:35
this, right? And that's what, like I said with me. I'm always
18:38
like, very process based. And if you can do that, if you can be
18:43
consistent, then you can be creative. But if you try to be
18:46
creative without even having yourself a basis and
18:48
consistency, which goes, what you just said about the cooking,
18:51
yeah, yeah. I mean, like, again, when somebody goes, What do you
18:54
think of this? If they I go, Well, you cut their feet off,
18:58
right? I said that was a no no. That's like an absolute no, no.
19:00
You cut them at the ankle, don't, don't do that. But as far
19:03
as the lighting, what do you think? Is it too bright? Is it
19:05
too dark? How do you like the transfer of the light? Is this
19:09
soft enough for you? Is that too hard? Because you got to get
19:12
them thinking that the photographer, you got to let
19:15
them know that there is no there are rights, but there aren't as
19:20
many wrongs, okay? And you go, that's great. And there are
19:24
things I look at, it's not for me, but do you dig it? Yeah, I
19:28
think it's all great. Then let's, let's, let's keep going,
19:31
Casey Fatchett: Yeah, let's encourage your own vision of
19:33
things, as opposed to you have to be just like me. And I think
19:37
that's one of those things that, again, there's a I see it a lot,
19:42
because there's just this huge, I mean, almost cottage industry
19:46
of people on social media saying, Oh, this is what my
19:48
settings were, and people falling into like, well, I just
19:53
got to use those settings if I want to copy that.
19:56
JC Carey: And 100% Yeah. You know, and I put my exit data in
20:02
my class, not because I want to, because I was basically told I
20:05
had to, you know, not by not by Westcott, but by students. But
20:10
what were your settings for that? What were you saying? If
20:12
you heard that on the 30th time, you were like, all right, I'm
20:15
just gonna start putting the settings in, because then I can
20:18
avoid this. But I'm very careful to explain these settings only
20:21
work in that place, at that time, with this lens, at this
20:25
time of day, at this size, like, they're too many variables,
20:29
right? There's too many variables like, and I'm getting
20:32
a lot of requests now for pullbacks. Is the new, you know,
20:34
I got to have more pullbacks to show where my lights were. And
20:36
I'm like, All right, that probably has more value, but
20:39
it's still, there's so many other variables that are
20:41
involved in or so, you can see where I put the lights, but you
20:45
necessarily see where I was when I shot the picture, or where,
20:48
you know, there's just a
20:49
Casey Fatchett: lot going on. I think that there's also, what
20:51
can you learn from that information? Like, what can I
20:54
learn from your EXIF data? Like, what was the shutter speed for
21:00
it? Yeah. Like, what can I learn from this? As opposed to, I'm
21:02
gonna copy that, and I'm expecting to get the same
21:05
result. It's kind of looking at it, and you have to be willing
21:08
to take the next step of analyzing that and going, like,
21:12
oh, this happened because of where the sun was, where you,
21:17
like, set, like, all these things together, kind of came
21:20
together, and so that, then when you go out, you kind of go like,
21:23
Huh? I wonder if I adjust this slightly, you know, whether it's
21:28
your aperture, whether it's your shutter speed, your whatever the
21:32
position of the lights, to get your desired result, as opposed
21:36
to, I want to, like, copy exactly what your
21:39
JC Carey: yeah, you know, you've been doing some quotes, but you
21:42
know, you know, don't stare at my finger, because you'll miss
21:45
the moon, right? Like, I'm just pointing the way. I'm telling
21:48
you where, where this is, you know, go that way. I love that
21:51
feeling when, again, back to EXIF I like when they look at
21:54
one of my pictures and they're like, What do you mean? That's a
21:58
third of a second and they're seeing a sharp picture, and I'm
22:01
like, Alright, so that gives me a chance not to tell them that
22:04
they should shoot a third of a second, but to explain to them
22:07
about flash duration. When I show them a picture that they're
22:10
like, Wait, I didn't think I could shoot it 2,000th of a
22:13
second with flashes, and because they were stuck with normal sync
22:17
at some point. And right gives me the reason to talk about the
22:20
creative possibilities of high speed sync. But I don't want
22:23
them to go, All right, well, I gotta walk out the door and
22:26
shoot a 4000 to two eight, and I'll shoot my picture will be
22:29
just like, Chasey sees, right? Like, you know, they're only,
22:32
they're only, like, so good. I want them to be
22:35
Casey Fatchett: better the Yeah, I think there's, it's, it's
22:37
those people who like, sit there, like, Oh, you're
22:39
gatekeeping by not telling me that your your settings like,
22:42
No, I want you to be better. I want you to be better than
22:45
copying somebody's settings and thinking that that's going to
22:49
get you where you want to go, it's not going to get you where
22:51
you want to go. And I want you to think critically about the
22:54
situation that you're in and not thinking, okay, because then
22:57
you're going to go out there and you're like, use the same
22:59
settings and whatever, and set up the lights up to the exact
23:02
same spot, and you're gonna take a picture. And you know, this
23:04
looks nothing like what the hell's wrong with Why did you
23:07
give me that advice? You You stink for like, telling me that
23:11
that was gonna work. No, I'm not gonna telling you that that's
23:14
gonna work.
23:14
JC Carey: The how and the why are much more important than the
23:17
what. Yeah, for me, you know, like, if I can explain to you
23:20
how, and I explained to you why I did it that way, then
23:23
hopefully you can take that and apply it to your situation.
23:26
Because if all you get is the what and you just copy it, yeah,
23:29
you're never going to be happy.
23:30
Casey Fatchett: So I have a question, yeah, and you know,
23:33
we're talking about making mistakes and like, being willing
23:35
to take How do you keep from like? Because this is something
23:39
that I struggled with in my career as a photographer for a
23:43
long time, when I'd make a mistake, it would I would get so
23:47
critical of myself that it would hold me back creatively, and I
23:52
would sit there and be like, Okay, well, I can't try to do
23:54
that again, especially in the beginning of my career. And so
23:59
how do you approach that now, because I think we were in a
24:04
similar place in starting out, like when we were talking about,
24:07
like being afraid of flash, or like doing some things, I think
24:10
that how do you get over that hump of making a mistake or and
24:17
then, like, thinking like, this isn't going to stop me. This
24:20
isn't going to keep me from moving forward.
24:25
JC Carey: It's a great question, and I think that this, this,
24:28
this is going to be about as harsh as I ever sound. Some
24:33
people are going to make a mistake, and it's going to stop.
24:38
And all that tells me is that they were never really
24:40
passionate about it in the first place. You know, not everybody
24:43
should be a photographer, not everybody should be a cook, not
24:46
everybody should be a painter. You know, I've tried to draw
24:50
1000 times in my life, but I've been alive for 700,000 days or
24:56
something, not really, you know, whatever it is, and so, but I
24:59
pick up my camera. Every day you know, whether you know, every
25:02
day Not, not as an exercise. I just, I love photography, and
25:06
it's not always going to be a big shoot. It's not always going
25:09
to be a big whatever. Sometimes it's going to be like a sky
25:11
looks really cool today, like, bang and it it's not art. But I
25:15
took a picture, and I went out and I played, and I kept myself
25:17
familiar with my gear, and I made sure this conversation, you
25:23
know, again, tangent man, but it ties into, I find photographers
25:28
in general, and I'm probably going to garner somebody that
25:32
will be like at me, photographers and compared to a
25:35
lot of other artisans, are a little on the lazy side, as far
25:39
as really going out and knowing what their tools can do. And the
25:44
only way to do that is to go out and do it and try, you know,
25:51
like I have pictures in dark rooms of all of my soft boxes
25:55
aimed at a wall to see what the fall off is, and to see if I
25:58
have my inner diffusion in or just my outer diffusion in how
26:01
much light did I lose when I buy a new camera? One of the first
26:04
things I do is I go out and I go through, you know, all the high
26:07
speed sync settings to see how much power I'm losing with this
26:10
strobe, with this light at this because it's important to me.
26:14
And a lot of people will look at me when I'm outside or when I'm
26:16
teaching, and I'm kind of like going, it's two, eight, at 2500
26:21
this and put that power, and I'm, I'm like, within a third of
26:24
a stop, and it's the number one skill I have, if I'm being
26:27
honest, that I'm a good guesser. Guessing. It's a lifetime of
26:33
failing, going and but internalizing that failure,
26:38
which goes back to what you just this ties back into what you
26:41
said, which is, I internalize that failure, but I never let
26:46
that failure be the thing that stops the river flowing. I'm not
26:49
building a dam with all my failures and all my bricks. I'm
26:52
still taking those things and building them so that I can
26:56
focus the water to where I want it to go, and I'm going all
26:58
right, this didn't work. And why didn't it work? Did it not go
27:03
because of me? Like, was my skill set just not enough to
27:07
accomplish this? Was it something where I was then? This
27:11
happens to me a lot, especially now, where I see people, you
27:16
know, you know, I do the Mets, right? I go and I do these Mets
27:18
portraits every year, and like, every year I would if I see
27:21
somebody else doing something that where I'm like this, it's a
27:24
hard fight not to be jealous, but also to be like I want to do
27:27
that, knowing that there will be limitations set upon me by
27:32
somebody else, or by my time, or by a lot of other things. And
27:36
sometimes you can get so frustrated going, I know I'm
27:39
better than this. Why did this person do that? Right? And if
27:43
you let that happen, you'll eventually just be like, why am
27:46
I doing this?
27:47
Casey Fatchett: Comparison is the death of joy, right?
27:49
JC Carey: I am very I compare to me as much as possible. I take
27:55
influence from other people. I have a whole folder of screen
27:58
grabs of this is a cool idea. I'm not not to go copy, but to
28:02
go that was a cool idea. How could I incorporate that down
28:04
the road? Used to be just a folder, a file on my computer,
28:08
but now it's screen grabs, generally off of my phone,
28:10
because that's where I am looking at most of my work, ever
28:13
better or worse. But how do I let my failures not be the thing
28:18
that stops me from trying to create is that I love this
28:21
thing. I love shooting, and probably I've definitely, at
28:27
various times, known that I have not been as present in a moment
28:31
as I should be because I was looking at it this way instead
28:34
of just expanding it. I think every photographer that really
28:39
loves photography at some point will say that. But I also know
28:44
that I'm not terribly sentimental about things, but I
28:47
am sentimental about my photos. And, you know, I will once every
28:54
year, once every two years, do the whole, have I used this in
28:57
the last two years or three years? Nope, Throw it. Throw it
28:59
out, you know? And it's, it's not a great thing, because it
29:02
leads to me at various times, re buying stuff, but not my photos.
29:05
You know, the photos will never go because I know there are
29:11
things in my life that I don't really remember, but I have a
29:14
photo that tells me I was there, and my memory is not clear about
29:18
it, but my memory of the photo is clear. If that makes sense?
29:22
Casey Fatchett: Oh, it makes absolute sense to me. And I
29:24
think that there's there that for me that triggers a number of
29:28
different responses just thinking about that concept. And
29:33
as we had talked earlier about, like a photo can just like, take
29:38
you back, like the senses, like, like your sense is like a smell
29:42
or a taste or whatever. And often I will go back and look at
29:46
a photo I took and just be like, I'm right back there in that
29:50
moment. And I where I might not have thought about it is clearly
29:54
without the photo like that, that picture really puts me in
29:59
the. Moment in time, in a way that, if I was just thinking
30:03
about it, does not you. Also brought up a couple other things
30:06
that I wanted to touch on that I thought were really good, also
30:09
the being familiar with your gear and just taking the time to
30:14
learn Scott Boren was on the show and like and talked about
30:17
this a lot. It was just like, go out and use your camera every
30:21
day in some way doesn't have to be for a long period of time.
30:24
It's just like but using it and becoming so familiar with it
30:27
that it becomes an extension of you, and you just know how to
30:30
and like you said, being a good guesser, I still shoot film
30:34
sometimes for me, not for clients, but it's the and I will
30:41
have people ask me, like, well, you know, how did you know to,
30:45
like, Mike, because the light meters on my cameras don't work
30:47
anymore, like, they've burnt out a long time ago. And I have a
30:51
little tiny thing that I'm not going out and, like, spot
30:54
metering things with, like, I'm out in the woods or whatever.
30:58
And I have a little thing that kind of gives me a can dial me
31:02
in a little bit to what the scene looks like. But I know
31:05
like I'm particularly I take pictures of my dog who is jet
31:09
black, right? I know how to expose that scene for my dog on
31:14
film, on the fly. And they're like, Well, how do you know how
31:17
to do that? Because I've done this so many times that I know I
31:21
can get myself dialed in pretty close. And lastly, the thing you
31:28
brought up recently, there was a thing on threads where somebody
31:31
was like, you have to go to film like, photography school. You
31:35
absolutely have to go to photography school. And if you
31:37
don't like, you're wasting your time. And I had my responses on
31:41
that, but then somebody was saying, like, Yeah, well, going
31:45
to photography school helps you set up yourself for success in a
31:51
way, like six months of grinding. And it could, like,
31:54
you could ruin your passion for photography. And I was just
31:57
like, if six months of grinding is going to ruin your passion
31:59
for photography, passion you weren't that passionate.
32:02
JC Carey: And I disagree with that notion completely. And I'm
32:06
not here to put photo schools out of business, but every time.
32:11
So prior to Wescott, I worked at nightcom, and we do a lot of
32:17
events at Big PJ schools and such big photo journalism
32:21
schools, and some of those kids would come to me and they'd be
32:25
like, you know, how did you get this? And how did you get that?
32:27
Where'd you go to school? I didn't go to school for this.
32:30
And they're like, Oh, I'm like, if you want to go to school,
32:32
what I recommend is go to business school and go to
32:35
Marketing School if you really want to be a photographer for a
32:37
living. Because I believe in my heart that most people can learn
32:41
to shoot. And I also believe in my heart, and I feel bad saying
32:45
this because somebody's gonna be mad at me, but a lot of art
32:50
school, there are some that are amazing. So there's always going
32:55
to be let me start with that. I do not want it to make it sound
32:57
like I'm generalizing, but I've seen too many people that are
33:03
teaching artists, artists and art that are what they're really
33:06
doing is teaching them to do it like them, right? It kind of
33:09
goes again. We've already touched on this, so without
33:12
diving more, but I hate that like I want to, I want to
33:17
encourage people to explore and dance around and figure out and
33:22
make make mistakes and revel in those mistakes, but then move
33:26
forward from them. And this whole idea that there's a right
33:29
way or a wrong way, and that you have to use this rule, and that
33:32
rule, you know, drives me nuts, and I deal with it teaching all
33:38
the time. Well, this person told me that I'm like, okay, yeah,
33:44
I'm telling you that I think that is pretty interesting, when
33:46
you decided to put the person on the on the close side to the
33:49
edge of the rule of thirds, and I feel very claustrophobic, and
33:53
it's not comfortable. But is that I wouldn't, and I wouldn't
33:56
do it all the time, but I think that you should feel feel free
33:59
to explore, that you should feel free to, you know, for the first
34:06
seven or eight years, you know, I never heard the word soft so
34:10
much. You know that the be all and end all of every portrait
34:13
shoot was soft lighting. And I was like, if soft lighting tells
34:17
the story you want to tell, that's great, right? But it's
34:19
not to be all. It's, you know, because I would run into people
34:22
all the time ago. Well, you can't do portraits with with
34:25
this. It's too small. You can't do portraits for the bare light.
34:28
It's going to give us hard light. And I go, I want Hard
34:30
Light today. Yes, that's the brush that I pulled out of my
34:34
palette today. And I'm going to do that. And if I, if I look at
34:38
that picture and I don't like it, I'll switch it.
34:41
Casey Fatchett: Wow, yeah, pull another tool out of the box and
34:44
go with something else. Because it's Yeah, and I think that it's
34:48
that you said you're not trying to breed copycats, and you want
34:52
people to create what they want. Like you said, Oh, this makes
34:55
you uncomfortable. Like, this composition makes you
34:57
uncomfortable. Is that what I'm going for do? I want to make.
34:59
You uncomfortable? Do I want to make you feel like maybe that's
35:04
the point of the photo is to and I think that people, when they
35:08
get into those absolutes, like, you always have to do this, or
35:11
you always have to follow the rule of thirds, or you always
35:13
have to. That's the depth of creativity. Yeah, it's just you,
35:16
you. You are no longer using your artistic voice in any way
35:22
you were just following a checklist. And again, I think
35:25
that this is I wrote down when he said it like, process over
35:29
recipe is such a like, you know, that's that is such a, yeah,
35:34
that's gonna go up on my like, post it notes, is like, just a
35:39
thing to keep in mind. And it you get there, you get to where
35:46
you want to go, and not thinking about like what you've been told
35:51
should be a destination. And it's one of those reasons I tell
35:55
people not to get so obsessed with trends, because trends
35:59
change, whatever like in do you want to be the trendy person? If
36:03
you do, okay, fine, that's that's what you want to do. But
36:06
if you want to do different things, that's fine too. You can
36:09
be yourself. I highly recommend it. You'll feel a lot
36:13
Unknown: I took the slide out recently, but there was a slide
36:16
in my class where you're where I'm going through my rules for
36:19
flash photography, you know. And I make it clear, these are my
36:23
rules for flash photography. And I put more, like, guidelines,
36:26
you know, it's always been my thing and like, because I know
36:30
that kind of sounds anti typical to everything. I just said that,
36:33
you know, I don't want that. I was like, these are some
36:36
guidelines, some head things, and one of them was, get the
36:40
flash out of the shoe whenever possible. Because I said, I know
36:43
it's trendy right now to have flat light, but it's going to go
36:47
out of trend again. Yeah, and you want to shoot a couple of
36:50
pictures like that, feel free. But if you shoot all your
36:53
pictures like that, you're going to look back at this shoot and
36:56
you're going to go, oh, man, like that was only cool for
37:00
that, that year time, that two year time, whatever it was and
37:03
like, it's, it's this, yeah, trends. You know, trends versus
37:06
true fashion is timeless, right? You know where, where trends
37:10
come and go and dialog true style is timeless. Fashion comes
37:13
and goes, I guess, probably better one, but
37:16
Casey Fatchett: I think that's probably more accurate. But
37:19
yeah, I think that for me in my own photography
37:22
JC Carey: from a guy with no sense of style,
37:25
Casey Fatchett: I think that one of the things that I've aimed
37:28
for probably in the last 15 years of my career has been
37:32
like, let's make this timeless, because I want you to look back
37:34
on I do a lot of weddings on portraits, so I was just like, I
37:38
want to make this something that you look back on in 20 years and
37:42
you're not going that was so 2025, I want it to want you to
37:49
go and like this could have been yesterday. And it's funny,
37:53
because at the same time that I made that decision in my
37:59
shooting style, I still have some of those photos in my
38:02
portfolio, and people will be like, oh, when was this? Oh,
38:05
that was 2010 and then really like, yeah, yeah. Because
38:11
sometimes you really hit it, sometimes you're like, when you
38:14
make that your you, this is my style. I'm not being ruled by
38:19
what everybody else is trying to do, then you can, you get to
38:24
have your voice, and you get to,
38:27
JC Carey: I totally agree. I couldn't agree more. And again,
38:31
it's one of those things that I make sure to hit on when I'm
38:34
teaching they like I tell people I said, I am very flashy. It
38:38
doesn't mean you have to be, but if this process that I'm giving
38:41
you means that you'll have a process, and you don't have to
38:44
be flashy, because I'm not giving you the recipe for the
38:47
way I did it. I'm teaching you how to do lighting, and once we
38:51
get some consistency, you can be as creative as you want. You can
38:54
decide less more, really opens the doors. And I wish somebody
38:59
had told me that the way I in my head. I know that sounds like
39:03
ego, and I'm sorry I tend to not have that much, but on this one
39:09
thing, I do wish that somebody had explained lighting to me and
39:11
photography to me 20 years ago, the way that I explain it now.
39:16
Casey Fatchett: Well, I don't think much better. I don't think
39:17
that that's necessarily ego as much as it is like this is
39:20
something that you realize what you're actually saying is, I
39:26
wish somebody told me I could be me, as opposed to saying you
39:30
have to be like them. I think that that's Yep. I think you
39:34
just really that was good, that you're it's okay to be you and
39:38
like what you like about photography and what you want
39:42
your images to be. That's the the crux of that is being okay
39:48
with your own style. And I think okay. So this leads me to
39:53
another question. What advice would you have for photographers
39:58
who. I are struggling to with that fear of like, I'm not as
40:07
good as everybody else. I am, like, I've not my photos aren't
40:11
the same as everyone else's, and I'm afraid to be like me and
40:18
then do my my own thing. What advice was? So, yeah,
40:24
JC Carey: so there's a few things that I would say I've
40:26
told myself early on, and so I'm trying to put myself now in the
40:32
in the in the shoes of somebody who's new and looking at work
40:35
and doing what you just said, feeling like I'm insufficient,
40:38
because my work doesn't look like that. I wish somebody had
40:44
told me sooner that how much of an influence post has things.
40:50
And I don't mean doing crazy Photoshop, but I do mean like I
40:56
might spend, and I'm not saying this in a Hooray me, I probably
41:01
would be better, maybe in certain things, but I have
41:04
decided that I probably spend 80 seconds on each picture, yeah,
41:12
so something like that. You know, there's not a lot of time
41:16
if somebody, if there's a special need, if I'm shooting
41:20
somebody that's high end and they've got some blemishes or
41:24
whatever? Yeah, I'll spend a couple of extra minutes on that,
41:27
but I don't do a lot of other things. And at the beginning,
41:30
when I'd be annoyed, like, I don't do frequency separation or
41:34
any of that, I'm not against it. I think it's great. And if I had
41:38
a client that was willing to pay me to have to say I want this
41:42
style, I'd pay somebody else to do that for me, because it's not
41:45
what I do. Yeah, but I do think it's important for some people
41:49
to realize that, especially if you're a raw shooter, which I
41:54
recommend to everybody at that point, you're probably you
42:02
should not in your I think too many people get hung up on this
42:05
picture. Is the final picture that I took it, and this is it.
42:10
And then there's too many people also at the other end of that
42:12
spectrum going, I'll just fix it in post. These are two extreme
42:15
ends of a you know, I you got to lose somewhere in the middle, I
42:21
am losing all eloquence and trying to explain that.
42:24
Casey Fatchett: No, I think that what you're what you're trying
42:25
to like, there's get as much as you can, right in the camera,
42:29
JC Carey: as much as you can, but realize that you still got
42:32
to frost that cake. Yeah, it's a cake, and it might be delicious,
42:36
but it's going to be better
42:38
Casey Fatchett: if we throw some good frosting on it. Yeah,
42:39
that's part of your recipe, that is that you shouldn't ignore.
42:43
It's not like, Oh, I just, I got it, and I can't, like, add some
42:46
finishing touches to this, like, even here's that's something
42:49
that I struggled with, as well as I think it was because I was
42:52
shooting weddings and things, they've got, like, 1000s of
42:54
photos to go through. And, you know, do I have time to spend
42:58
this much? And then when Lightroom came along being able
43:01
to copy certain things and put them on things, and going, okay,
43:04
you know what? All of my photos need, a little bit of this, like
43:07
my secret sauce, you know, that I developed, and being like,
43:10
okay, they need this, like, little bit of saturation in this
43:13
color, and dig a little contrast here, and these sorts of things
43:16
that to, like, add on to it, because otherwise it's just flat
43:21
to me, you know, to looking at it and, yeah, you putting that
43:25
effort in there? There's, it is. It's just, it's the icing on the
43:29
cake.
43:30
JC Carey: Yeah, because there were people that, I don't want
43:36
to say idolized, but looked up to, and then in various
43:42
situations, being in the industry, you end up starting to
43:44
see some of their raw work, and they see the straight out of the
43:47
camera. And it doesn't mean that their work is bad at all. No, it
43:50
means that I realized that they were 90% there. But this nudge,
43:55
this little 10% took it from being a good picture to a great
44:01
picture. And I at the beginning, I really wish somebody explained
44:04
that to me, because I was just disappointed with myself all the
44:07
time, going, like, Why do my colors not look like that? Why
44:10
do my colors? Because I don't change my skies. I don't, you
44:13
know, selective color things, right? You know, like, like, I'm
44:16
telling you. I've got a preset that I built in Lightroom now,
44:20
especially with all the ability to create some masks where I can
44:22
just hit the skin, or I can just do this, and that is that takes
44:28
12 seconds to apply to a picture. I look at it a little
44:31
more closely. I might make sure that it didn't apply softening
44:35
to the eyes, because sometimes it'll be a little aggressive
44:38
with doing that. I don't want the eyes to be soft. That's it,
44:43
you know. And I'm glad that I am confident enough at this point
44:46
to shoot in front of people, because there was definitely a
44:49
point where I was like, Oh, they're gonna think that, you
44:51
know. And I'm like, no, no, I'm 90% there. They can see it, you
44:53
know. It's what it is. So I wish somebody had told me that to
44:57
finish your thing, and I wish that somebody you. Had told me
45:01
that this is going to sound contrary, but, uh, not contrary.
45:08
But people don't like saying this. The gear does matter. It
45:12
is not the defining thing. And I'm fond of telling people in
45:16
classes these days that if you don't take a good picture today,
45:18
that you You're the problem. I do believe that. I do believe
45:22
that everybody you know, but I also run into people that see my
45:26
sports stuff, and they're like, Oh, I really want to go do that.
45:29
I don't mean my sports portraits. I mean, like my
45:31
sports action and like, I really want to do that. Okay, you know,
45:36
what do you what do you have? And they'll describe a $600
45:41
camera with a $400 lens, and it's not that they can't make
45:44
great pictures with that, right? They can't, they can't
45:47
necessarily make great pictures of moving action sports in bad
45:50
light conditions and have them look the same as what I'm doing,
45:54
right? And I likewise, will see somebody who has better gear
45:58
than me and go and part of me wants to believe that it's 100%
46:02
it it's 100% it's the photographer, you know, it's,
46:05
it's the cook, and not the pan, you know, whatever you want to
46:09
use the analogy. But I also do know that it makes a difference.
46:13
Casey Fatchett: Yeah, gear doesn't matter until it does. Is
46:16
the one thing I always, usually say, like, there's, there's a
46:20
certain like, 100% like you said, you're not going to get
46:24
the the shot, the sports shot with your 24 to 70 like or
46:27
whatever, like 18-55 kit lens, like the
46:30
JC Carey: 70-300 you're just not capable, right? It's not your
46:33
fault, right? And I'll tell them you should still gotta shoot,
46:36
find a day with better light. Work on your timing. Work on
46:39
spending on the game. Work on your auto focus techniques. Work
46:42
on on your framing right? Then it's going to be that much
46:45
easier when the time comes where you can afford a better lens,
46:49
because everything will transition forward. I've got
46:51
friends of mine that are have watched my work, and you know,
46:55
I've switched camera companies a couple of times, not because I
46:58
thought it made a big difference. Because, you know, I
47:01
took a job one place, I switched someplace else, my personal
47:04
relationships make a difference, you know, to what I shoot. But I
47:07
will say that people who look at my pictures from seven years
47:11
ago, not talking about the camera, that they'll notice that
47:14
my composition is very there or there, and they're like, Well,
47:17
why? And I'll say, well, because I was using all speed lights at
47:20
that point, because I worked for a company that sold speed
47:23
lights, and so I was like, you know, there's also a little bit
47:27
of the it's good enough for Joe McNally, it's good enough for
47:30
me. It's my hero, right? And I still believe in that to a
47:33
certain extent, not, not, not anything with Joe, that I could
47:36
do it, but I'm going to, at some point, let the technology make
47:39
some decisions. It's going to control my composition. It's
47:42
going to control some F stop choices or some shutter speed
47:45
choices, because I'm suddenly I'm not going to be able to do
47:49
it. And that's always that is one of the doesn't break my
47:52
heart. But if I'm teaching a class, and, you know, I'm very I
47:55
try to get everybody in the class to shoot when I do when I
47:58
teach, and when somebody rolls up with a camera that can't do
48:01
high speed sync after I've been really running high speed sync
48:04
pictures to everybody. And then I'm like, All right, we'll make
48:08
it work. So now instead, we're going to stop down and sit,
48:11
we're going to because we're going to be at 200 and I'm like,
48:14
this is just I'm explaining to you. But if you buy another
48:17
camera in the future, it's going to do high speed sync, because
48:20
if you spend more than 800 bucks at this point, you can do it,
48:24
right? But this one that can't do it, it doesn't matter,
48:27
because process is still what matters, just right. Now, when I
48:30
say, what aperture Do you want to shoot? Because aperture
48:33
control step the field you're going to instead of telling me
48:36
to wait, you don't have a two eight, right? I I wanted to
48:39
shoot at f 11 because I really like that background. I'm like,
48:42
Cool. Let's make it work forward now, just so that you remember
48:46
that the next time, if you do get a camera that allows this
48:49
function, that process didn't change. Now you're just going to
48:52
shoot a two eight. You're going to look at your your triangle of
48:55
exposure, and you're going to know that you were a 200 that F
48:59
11 is the same as being a two as being a two eight at 2000 there.
49:02
It's about that. Yes, I'm not really right, but it's close.
49:05
And you're going to make the same picture, but with less
49:08
depth of field, and you're going to go look at it and go, Oh,
49:11
wow. And neither one was right. Those are both creative choices
49:15
that you made. Why should we do this? But they'll look at the
49:18
work to finish that point. I don't mean to hold up. They look
49:21
at some of my new stuff. Now they're like, Man, you're really
49:24
getting better. And some of them, you know, even your
49:27
photographer friends, will do that stuff that frustrates your
49:30
your mom when you told her, Wow, mom, you know, this is great.
49:34
You must have great pans. You know, they never do that, but
49:37
you know, they do it to us all the time when they're like, you
49:40
must have a great camera, and I'm gonna give a little plug
49:43
here, but they're like, since you went to Westcott, your
49:46
work's gotten a lot better. And it must be the lights that is
49:49
the implication. And I'm like, well, it is the lights, but it's
49:53
not the lights, because suddenly the lights made me better,
49:56
although it's they're consistent, yeah, yeah. I don't
49:59
mean to make this a commercial. It's that now I have more power.
50:02
And now that freed me to make more choices, right? Freed me to
50:05
to go, oh, I can do this now, right?
50:07
Casey Fatchett: You're working with a higher wattage. You can
50:10
do now. You can do different things, right? But it's all like
50:13
you're saying you're coming back to your process.
50:15
JC Carey: It combats that euphemism that people go, it's
50:17
not the gear, it's the photographer. Yeah, I think
50:21
that. So we're very certain people love to say that, and I
50:25
think that sometimes that hurts beginner and photographers who
50:28
think they should be able to do everything with this inexpensive
50:31
piece of gear that they went out and got. And I hate because I'll
50:34
never say cheap. I'll say inexpensive, because everybody's
50:37
budget's different, right? So if I say cheap, for a lot of
50:40
people, $600 on camera is a lot of money you a lot of money,
50:43
yeah. And I remember when it would have been to me, and not
50:46
that I'm rich, I've just decided that all other things in my
50:49
life, like shirts and pants and, you know, are not as expensive
50:52
to store my stuff are not as important as a camera. But, um,
50:59
the gear does make a difference. So the gear makes a difference.
51:02
Post makes a difference, because those are things that some
51:05
people would love to tell you. I hear them presented as truisms,
51:08
that I don't do any posts. It's all straight out of camera. I
51:13
know they're lying, and I know they're lying, or I can see it,
51:17
and I feel like telling them now I can see that you don't do any
51:19
post, and you would have benefited from about 35 seconds
51:22
of post. Your picture should have been
51:23
Casey Fatchett: better, right? The color is off, or, like,
51:26
whatever, like, those sorts of things I see, like, I see people
51:29
like, who, friends who will get a professional, like, business
51:35
headshot, and they look green in it. And I'm just like, Could you
51:39
go back to your photographer and ask them to like color balance
51:42
this a little bit better, because you look your skin tone
51:45
looks a little blue or a little green and like whatever like.
51:48
Just ask them if they can spend 20 seconds on this in post and
51:52
or send it to me, and I'll do it for you.
51:54
JC Carey: One of the things that brings me real joy, like real
51:57
genuine joy, is when a student, an attendee, whatever, at a
52:03
class, posts a picture and tags me in it. But every now and
52:07
again, I'm like, this, couldn't you have taken the pimple off of
52:12
here? Couldn't you have done that like, because the subject
52:14
doesn't like it and it makes it look it kind of goes to what you
52:18
said before that. You're like, well, you're not the problem.
52:20
You're the problem. You know, when we I think it might have
52:23
been before we came on, we had that conversation of leading to
52:26
like, how people look at things, and I'm like, That picture's not
52:29
got my name on it, and I'll never, I've never asked anybody
52:31
to take it off. I've never done that. I've just been like, but I
52:36
more often is, how come mine looks like this and yours looks
52:39
like this? We were, we shot 40 seconds apart and like, because
52:43
I did, I said, if you want to get on Zoom, I'll show you what
52:46
I do in Lightroom. It took 38 seconds, and the person just
52:49
looks a little bit better. And then,
52:51
Casey Fatchett: ah, yeah. What's the color and like, and all
52:56
these other things,
52:58
JC Carey: a little texture in the skin, a little this, like,
53:00
like, tiny little changes, yeah? Like, I said, I'm not doing I
53:02
hate when somebody goes, Oh, that's great. Photoshop that
53:05
hurts, that breaks my heart too, yeah? Like, that breaks my heart.
53:08
Casey Fatchett: But I always tell my clients, like, I use the
53:10
term special sauce because it's, it is. It's the same thing for
53:14
it's different for each photographer. Like, what you
53:16
want to do with your photos, but learning to do that in post and
53:21
learning just enough of Lightroom or Photoshop or
53:24
whatever editing software that you're using to make those
53:27
subtle adjustments. Can have like, Okay, you're you use, I'm
53:34
assuming, since you're photographing the myths and
53:36
other sports stuff, that you have understand some sports
53:38
metaphors. It's a game of inches, yes. And what separates
53:44
a like you said, it's not cheap, inexpensive. You can have
53:50
inexpensive equipment and make really amazing photos. It comes
53:57
down to like when you're making that jump to like certain
54:00
aspects of photography. I was in the heather Larkins macro class
54:05
at unique when the same weekend, you and I met, and there were
54:10
people in there with their like, kit lenses, trying to take macro
54:14
shots and not understanding why they couldn't, right, get the
54:18
same looking photo. And I, you know, Heather was very good with
54:21
them. And, you know, I was like, trying to, like, tell people,
54:24
like, Well, part of this is your gear, and this is something you
54:26
really want to do. You may want, and I would say, like, you may
54:28
want to invest in the gear. If this is something that really
54:33
entices you, but there's gonna be, you're gonna come up against
54:36
limitations on on your gear, and
54:39
JC Carey: even other times they go, why do you need a camera
54:41
that shoots 30 frames a second? You mostly shoot portraits. And
54:44
I'll go, you're right. So I could do this with this other
54:48
camera. Going back to, you know, if I want to build a house, I
54:53
could do it with a hammer, but if I have a nail gun, my life is
54:56
a lot easier. Yeah, like, I'm going to take advantage of that.
55:00
Yeah, I had a guy the other day showed up and and he pretty much
55:04
insisted on manually focusing. He had a modern z8 great focus
55:10
system, you know. And I had to sit him down and go through and
55:14
show him I focus, because he didn't know that he had it. And
55:17
I said, I don't shoot mirrorless because it's lighter. My
55:21
camera's not lighter. I don't shoot mirrorless because of
55:23
anything. I shoot my one because I put it in auto eye focus, and
55:27
when I'm shooting it has taken away a barrier between me and my
55:31
subject, where now I know it's their eye almost all the time.
55:35
99.9 like ivory snow, it's going to catch and that technology,
55:41
I'm not going to be a person who's going to hide behind like
55:44
you. I have one film camera left. I pick it up on occasion
55:48
because it reminds me of how hard this whole thing can be.
55:51
And sometimes it's good to have your face stuck in the dirt for
55:56
a second to be like, All right, like, when things go bad, like
56:00
that's you almost feel the most alive. You're like, you know
56:02
you're struggling, but so many people insist on not taking
56:08
advantage of technology, yeah. Like, why? Like, I want the
56:12
better thing. I want the better thing not because of status or
56:14
because of anything, because it makes me able to do what I want
56:17
to do better and easier, right?
56:19
Casey Fatchett: And knowing how to use that tool to realize your
56:24
personal
56:25
JC Carey: vision, my vision, yeah.
56:33
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58:52
Hey, now for my favorite part of the show, what's that? Say?
58:58
Useless information. This is always death. Okay, the episode
59:06
again, you okay, I'm not gonna hold it against you that you,
59:08
you photograph the Mets as a Detroit sports they were my
59:12
adopted team when I moved to New York.
59:14
JC Carey: I could, I could Detroit's, like, one of those
59:16
ones that I don't hate, obviously, because, like, I got
59:19
no reason to, you know, it's not like the guys are caught in the
59:21
Bronx, yeah.
59:23
Casey Fatchett: Well, when I, when I moved to New York, I
59:24
adopted the the Mets and jets is my, like, sort of like, local
59:27
teams that I would root for, and I convinced my wife, who was a
59:31
Yankees fan, to, like, move over to the Mets. It took, it took,
59:36
it took going to a lot of Mets games, and just like, the
59:38
atmosphere being so different, is people in just having fun and
59:43
enjoying themselves, as opposed to like, like the Yankees games
59:47
were not nearly as entertaining. Probably not as entertaining for
59:50
her, because we always went when they were playing Detroit, and
59:52
Detroit beat them every time we were there. So before Babe Ruth,
59:58
what do you think Major League. Baseball's career home rec run
1:00:01
record was, how many home runs do you think were the career
1:00:05
home run record? 17 for the career No, oh,
1:00:11
JC Carey: for total, I thought you made a season.
1:00:13
Casey Fatchett: No, all right. Career.
1:00:19
JC Carey: Is it like Honus Wagner? It's somebody like that,
1:00:22
and it's gonna be like 138
1:00:25
Casey Fatchett: or something like you are exactly right on
1:00:27
number. It was 100 it was 138 after Ruth, 714
1:00:33
JC Carey: Yeah, It's bonkers. Yeah.
1:00:36
Casey Fatchett: Who is it? Who is it? I don't know who it was.
1:00:39
Go find out now. It's 130 you might be right. It might be Ty
1:00:42
count, you
1:00:43
JC Carey: know, I mean, yeah, he, he at the time when he was
1:00:47
hitting 50, he was hitting more than the whole league combined.
1:00:50
Yeah, it was just bonkers.
1:00:53
Casey Fatchett: Yeah, think that he was, like a pitcher as well,
1:00:56
like as
1:00:57
JC Carey: a Red Sox, he was a pitcher, and they stopped him
1:00:59
because you could hit too much.
1:01:01
Casey Fatchett: Yeah, they wanted him to actually be up
1:01:05
there. JC. It's is a pleasure having you on. Where can people
1:01:10
find you?
1:01:12
JC Carey: JC photo media. If you Google it, you'll either find my
1:01:15
instagram or my website. If you go to either one of those,
1:01:18
you'll find the other pretty active there's also a Facebook
1:01:21
page for it, but I don't always go to it, and any posts on there
1:01:25
are from one of the others. You know, just get shared
1:01:28
automatically, but yeah. JC, like my name, photo, like what
1:01:31
we do and media, because every now and again, there'll be a
1:01:34
video, very real.
1:01:36
Casey Fatchett: Thank you so much, man. I really appreciate
1:01:39
you coming to talk to me.
1:01:41
JC Carey: Thanks.
1:01:50
Casey Fatchett: And we're back. Thanks to JC Carey for coming on
1:01:55
the show. I hope our discussion makes you think differently
1:02:00
about making mistakes when it comes to photography. You can
1:02:05
find all of JCS links in the Episode Notes. And while you're
1:02:11
in Follow mode, be sure to subscribe to the show. And if
1:02:16
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nerdy photo, no dots, underscores or dashes. Have you
1:02:37
figured out how to extricate us from this predicament? I do have
1:02:43
an idea, something I saw on a cartoon once until next time
1:02:48
everyone stay safe and stay nerdy.