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Why Nobody Cares About Your Photography · The MOOD Podcast

• 0:14
  Matt Jacob: Nobody cares about you or your photography.
• 0:18
  Matt Jacob: And let me tell you why, but more importantly, why this is actually a good thing.
• 0:23
  Matt Jacob: Welcome to another episode of Moments of Moods.
• 0:26
  Matt Jacob: And the other night I was sitting at home late reading Still Like an Artist by Austin Cleon.
• 0:32
  Matt Jacob: It's one of those books that looks deceptively simple, almost obvious a lot of the time.
• 0:37
  Matt Jacob: Do you realize this overlook wasn't the book the last time you read it?
• 0:42
  Matt Jacob: It was you.
• 0:43
  Matt Jacob: You just weren't maybe ready for what it was pointing at yet.
• 0:46
  Matt Jacob: And I'd already had this phrase circling around my head for a few days by this point because it keeps coming up again and again in conversations with photographers that I mentor, and if I'm being honest, it's come up plenty of times before in conversations with myself over the years, too.
• 1:06
  Matt Jacob: That quiet, uncomfortable question that kind of sits underneath everything else.
• 1:11
  Matt Jacob: Why are people not seeing my work?
• 1:12
  Matt Jacob: Why doesn't anyone care?
• 1:14
  Matt Jacob: You know, why does this feel so well lonely sometimes?
• 1:19
  Matt Jacob: Why bother even if it just is invisible to everyone?
• 1:23
  Matt Jacob: At some point, I put the book down and of course habitually picked up my phone without even thinking, checking messages, etc., and then did what we all do.
• 1:32
  Matt Jacob: I went on to Instagram and just started scrolling, looking at photos, image after image passed by, some of them genuinely good, of course, some carefully made, a lot of them very beautiful, and then they were gone.
• 1:45
  Matt Jacob: Not rejected, not criticized per se, not even hated, just gone, lost in the ether, right?
• 1:52
  Matt Jacob: And that's when the sentence finally settled properly.
• 1:56
  Matt Jacob: Nobody cares about your photography.
• 1:59
  Matt Jacob: Nobody cares even about you.
• 2:01
  Matt Jacob: In this moment, that is.
• 2:04
  Matt Jacob: And that last bit matters.
• 2:06
  Matt Jacob: This isn't an insult, of course.
• 2:08
  Matt Jacob: It's meant to be encouragement.
• 2:09
  Matt Jacob: And it's not even always strictly true.
• 2:11
  Matt Jacob: I'm exaggerating slightly to make a point.
• 2:14
  Matt Jacob: Of course, people can care, and sometimes they do, but most of the time they don't.
• 2:19
  Matt Jacob: And if you're honest with yourself, neither do you, right?
• 2:23
  Matt Jacob: When was the last time that you spent an entire day taking real action around someone, someone else's work?
• 2:31
  Matt Jacob: Not necessarily liking it, not commenting something polite, actual action, buying the book, sitting with it at work, returning to it weeks later, letting it change you in some small way.
• 2:42
  Matt Jacob: Because action is the operative word here.
• 2:45
  Matt Jacob: We confuse platitudes with care all of the time, but those are not the same thing.
• 2:51
  Matt Jacob: So when I say nobody cares, I'm not issuing a judgment per se.
• 2:56
  Matt Jacob: I'm describing the default conditions we're all working inside, especially now.
• 3:02
  Matt Jacob: And I'm deliberately not spiraling off into a wider commentary about maybe disillusionment, social media, social fragmentation, broken systems, and the general weirdness of modern day life.
• 3:15
  Matt Jacob: There are far smarter people than me doing that already.
• 3:20
  Matt Jacob: I'm interested in something more practical and more personal.
• 3:24
  Matt Jacob: But before we go any further, we need to be clear about what caring actually means in the context of photography, because a lot of confusion actually starts here.
• 3:36
  Matt Jacob: Most photographs are just glanced at, right?
• 3:38
  Matt Jacob: Very few are received, most are just seen, very few are actually held.
• 3:44
  Matt Jacob: Care is not visibility, it's not validation, it's not popularity, it's not numbers.
• 3:50
  Matt Jacob: Care is what happens when an image, or more often a body of work, creates a durable bond between the intention of the person who made it and the inner world of the person who encounters it.
• 4:04
  Matt Jacob: It's when a photograph doesn't just pass through someone, but actually stays with them, right?
• 4:10
  Matt Jacob: Returns later, alters something maybe even slightly.
• 4:13
  Matt Jacob: And that level of care is rare, which is exactly why it matters.
• 4:19
  Matt Jacob: Now, here's the context most photographers forget to account for.
• 4:24
  Matt Jacob: Everyone is busy inside their own head.
• 4:26
  Matt Jacob: Not busy in a productive sense often, but occupied, right?
• 4:31
  Matt Jacob: People are carrying worries they don't talk about, unfinished conversations, fears about money, health, relationships, identity, purpose, all of that stuff, right?
• 4:42
  Matt Jacob: No one really has their life figured out, no matter how put together they might appear to you on the outside, especially online.
• 4:49
  Matt Jacob: And on top of that, we live more than ever inside our filter bubbles and echo chambers.
• 4:54
  Matt Jacob: And we're surrounded by content that reflects our own anxieties back at us.
• 4:59
  Matt Jacob: Attention is fragmented, emotional bandwidth is highly limited.
• 5:04
  Matt Jacob: So when your photograph appears, if it gets in front of people, it doesn't arrive in a quiet receptive space.
• 5:11
  Matt Jacob: It lands in the middle of someone else's internal noise and distractions.
• 5:16
  Matt Jacob: That doesn't mean people don't care.
• 5:18
  Matt Jacob: They absolutely most likely do.
• 5:21
  Matt Jacob: They just aren't waiting to care about your work.
• 5:24
  Matt Jacob: Nobody is sitting there poised, hoping that the next image they see will finally move them.
• 5:30
  Matt Jacob: Right?
• 5:30
  Matt Jacob: There may be some very, very few amount of people that are doing that.
• 5:34
  Matt Jacob: Because indifference isn't personal, it's structural, and it's the default.
• 5:38
  Matt Jacob: But from the other side, from where you're standing as the photographer, that indifference, of course, feels like rejection.
• 5:45
  Matt Jacob: It feels like a verdict, like proof that your work isn't good enough or deep enough or worth all of the effort, right?
• 5:54
  Matt Jacob: I hear this constantly from budding photographers.
• 5:58
  Matt Jacob: Not necessarily technical questions anymore, thank goodness, but more existential ones.
• 6:04
  Matt Jacob: Will people like this?
• 6:06
  Matt Jacob: How do I find my audience so that I can get eyes on my work?
• 6:10
  Matt Jacob: How do I find any eyes to get on my work?
• 6:12
  Matt Jacob: Even the language gives the tension away, right?
• 6:15
  Matt Jacob: Finding an audience sounds like hunting, chasing, convincing people.
• 6:20
  Matt Jacob: But attention doesn't really work like that, at least valued attention.
• 6:24
  Matt Jacob: The world isn't short on images, it's oversupplied.
• 6:27
  Matt Jacob: We're producing more photographs than we know how to digest.
• 6:32
  Matt Jacob: And in that environment, more work isn't the answer.
• 6:36
  Matt Jacob: Louder work isn't the answer, but meaning is.
• 6:41
  Matt Jacob: For me, caring about someone's photography means that their work becomes part of my inner world rather than just part of my visual diet.
• 6:51
  Matt Jacob: It means that a photograph or more often a body of work lingers with me and meditates upon me.
• 6:57
  Matt Jacob: I think about it while I'm washing dishes, journaling, or working out.
• 7:02
  Matt Jacob: It returns to me on a walk.
• 7:04
  Matt Jacob: A sequence from a photo book appears in my mind when I'm in a completely different context.
• 7:10
  Matt Jacob: But so what?
• 7:12
  Matt Jacob: Well, it might make me feel less alone or more uncomfortable, or newly curious about a place or a person I had never considered before.
• 7:20
  Matt Jacob: What a privilege to have your mind opened like that, right?
• 7:24
  Matt Jacob: So for me, caring shows up in the way I change my behavior.
• 7:28
  Matt Jacob: I seek that photographer out again, I buy their book, I go to their exhibition, I recommend them to a friend, I keep their work on my shelf, I invite them even to talk with me on or off the podcast.
• 7:40
  Matt Jacob: It makes me think differently.
• 7:41
  Matt Jacob: Shows up as a memory and in small acts of loyalty, maybe.
• 7:45
  Matt Jacob: And if you look at the work that has really stayed in the culture, not just in photography, but in all art forms, in music, literature, cinema, it is not the work that shouted the loudest in the moment.
• 7:58
  Matt Jacob: It is the work that accumulated meaning over time.
• 8:02
  Matt Jacob: It carried something forward.
• 8:04
  Matt Jacob: It helped people feel or name or understand something about being human that they did not have language for before.
• 8:12
  Matt Jacob: And that can make us feel comforted.
• 8:15
  Matt Jacob: That phrase carrying meaning forward is important here because meaning in this context is not some abstract intellectual concept.
• 8:23
  Matt Jacob: It is the way images help us hold on to what matters.
• 8:27
  Matt Jacob: A photograph from a war is not just pixels, it is a piece of evidence that says this happened.
• 8:34
  Matt Jacob: A tender portrait is not just a study in light or composition.
• 8:38
  Matt Jacob: It's a way of saying this person existed and was loved like this in this moment.
• 8:43
  Matt Jacob: A long-term project in a small community, maybe, is not just aesthetics.
• 8:48
  Matt Jacob: It is an archive, a memory, a way of saying this way of life was here.
• 8:53
  Matt Jacob: And when that work is gathered into something, I don't know, like a photo book, something else begins to happen.
• 9:00
  Matt Jacob: Images stop standing alone and start behaving like sentences.
• 9:05
  Matt Jacob: The sequence suggests a narrative, maybe, rather than explains it, puts it on a screen.
• 9:11
  Matt Jacob: Gaps and silences matter as much as the pictures.
• 9:14
  Matt Jacob: Repetition becomes emphasis, and silence becomes meaning.
• 9:19
  Matt Jacob: And a book like a photo book allows an artist to quietly thread their internal struggles, their questions, their fears, and their way of seeing the world through the work without having to announce it out loud.
• 9:34
  Matt Jacob: In that sense, a photo book is not just a container for photographs, right?
• 9:39
  Matt Jacob: It's a way of expressing how an artist understands a place, a culture, a moment in time, or even themselves, often themselves.
• 9:49
  Matt Jacob: It's where personal experience and outward observation are allowed to sit side by side long enough for the viewer to feel the tension between them.
• 9:58
  Matt Jacob: And that is meaning carried forward.
• 10:02
  Matt Jacob: Meaning is important for society because without it, everything just becomes interchangeable, futile.
• 10:11
  Matt Jacob: If nothing carries meaning, everything becomes entertainment.
• 10:16
  Matt Jacob: People stop feeling deeply, they start acting on the surface, and they stop recognizing themselves and others.
• 10:22
  Matt Jacob: They stop caring about anything beyond their own immediate circle.
• 10:26
  Matt Jacob: That is when we become very easy to manipulate and very easy to divide.
• 10:32
  Matt Jacob: Feeling is not a sentimental extra, it's one of the ways we stay human.
• 10:37
  Matt Jacob: If you want to get mystical about it, you could say feeling is the mechanism by which life becomes conscious of itself.
• 10:45
  Matt Jacob: But we'll leave the mysticism for another day.
• 10:48
  Matt Jacob: So photography that people care about is photography that participates in that process, right?
• 10:54
  Matt Jacob: It helps someone see something they already feel but have not been able to articulate.
• 11:00
  Matt Jacob: It reveals something they did not know they cared about until they saw it, right?
• 11:06
  Matt Jacob: It gives shape to a part of reality that otherwise would have remained likely invisible.
• 11:11
  Matt Jacob: There is a reason that when you sit with a good photo book, it often moves you more than a thousand images on a screen.
• 11:19
  Matt Jacob: You must have felt that, right?
• 11:20
  Matt Jacob: Social media is built for speed and reaction.
• 11:23
  Matt Jacob: A book is built for pace and reflection.
• 11:25
  Matt Jacob: On a screen, images live and die in isolation, but in a book, they start to speak to each other.
• 11:31
  Matt Jacob: The gaps between them start to matter.
• 11:34
  Matt Jacob: Sequencing, pairing, repetition, atmosphere, all of these create a structure where meaning can actually emanate from.
• 11:42
  Matt Jacob: When I work on my own projects and think about them as potential series, diptycs, or even books, something shifts.
• 11:50
  Matt Jacob: I no longer ask, how many views will this get?
• 11:53
  Matt Jacob: Will this get likes?
• 11:54
  Matt Jacob: But I ask, what does this belong next to?
• 11:57
  Matt Jacob: What does this image do to the one that comes after it?
• 12:00
  Matt Jacob: What is the feeling that survives the whole sequence?
• 12:03
  Matt Jacob: And that is where care starts to be designed into the work, not in a manipulative way, but in a way that respects the viewer's time and attention as well as the photographers.
• 12:14
  Matt Jacob: So the lesson before we get to anything that looks like steps is this people do not care about your photography by default because their attention is already overcommitted.
• 12:26
  Matt Jacob: They will only care when your work carries enough meaning over enough time and that it earns a place in their inner life.
• 12:35
  Matt Jacob: And that is not about hacks, it is about how you practice and doing the good work.
• 12:41
  Matt Jacob: So, how do you actually move from nobody cares to some people genuinely care?
• 12:48
  Matt Jacob: You know, what are the levers you can influence?
• 12:50
  Matt Jacob: And I want to make this very explicit because this is where a lot of vague talk about just be authentic becomes futile and just useless.
• 13:00
  Matt Jacob: In my experience and in my own work, in watching the photographers I admire and in working with students and mentees, there are what I think five conditions that tend to be present when people genuinely start to care about someone's photography.
• 13:15
  Matt Jacob: You can think of them as maybe five considerations or five tests you can apply to your own practice.
• 13:21
  Matt Jacob: They're not magic, of course.
• 13:23
  Matt Jacob: They need you to work at it, but they are honest.
• 13:26
  Matt Jacob: First, the work has to stop begging for attention.
• 13:29
  Matt Jacob: Easier said than done, right?
• 13:30
  Matt Jacob: Most photography online is visually shouting.
• 13:33
  Matt Jacob: It's trying to be clever or impressive or shocking because somewhere underneath there is a quiet desperation.
• 13:40
  Matt Jacob: Oh, please look at me, please validate me, please prove that I exist.
• 13:45
  Matt Jacob: It may sound harsh, but I think it's true.
• 13:48
  Matt Jacob: People can feel that even when they cannot articulate it.
• 13:51
  Matt Jacob: Work that people care about usually carries a different energy.
• 13:54
  Matt Jacob: It feels self-possessed.
• 13:56
  Matt Jacob: It would exist whether or not anyone applauded it or even saw it.
• 14:00
  Matt Jacob: It does not try to seduce, it invites.
• 14:03
  Matt Jacob: And that does not mean you hide your work or you pretend to not want an audience, of course.
• 14:09
  Matt Jacob: We all want that.
• 14:10
  Matt Jacob: It means that when you make decisions, what to shoot, what to include, what to show, how to present it, you are led by the integrity of the project, not by the imagined future applause.
• 14:22
  Matt Jacob: Second, care grows through accumulation, not single images.
• 14:27
  Matt Jacob: One photograph can get attention.
• 14:29
  Matt Jacob: A body of work earns care.
• 14:31
  Matt Jacob: When someone looks at your images and starts to see recurring themes, recurring places, recurring emotional tones, their trust begins to grow.
• 14:40
  Matt Jacob: They realize this is not just a one-off performance, right?
• 14:43
  Matt Jacob: It is a relationship you have with the world.
• 14:46
  Matt Jacob: And that is why thinking in projects and series and eventually books, maybe, is so powerful.
• 14:53
  Matt Jacob: It naturally forces you to consider sequence, context, repetition, and development over time.
• 15:00
  Matt Jacob: If all you ever present is isolated hits, you might get reactions, you might get a viral reel or a viral post, but you will struggle to build any deep attachment.
• 15:10
  Matt Jacob: Third, the work has to feel necessary for you, not optional.
• 15:15
  Matt Jacob: What do I mean by this?
• 15:16
  Matt Jacob: Well, the photographers who books you keep on your shelf and return to are rarely the ones who just thought this might do well online.
• 15:24
  Matt Jacob: They are the ones who could not not make that work.
• 15:28
  Matt Jacob: The project was an extension of a question they could not let go of, or a place they were drawn back to repeatedly, or a part of themselves they needed to actually understand.
• 15:39
  Matt Jacob: That sense of necessity comes through.
• 15:42
  Matt Jacob: Viewers might not know exactly why, but they feel that this person has skin in the game, right?
• 15:47
  Matt Jacob: The work has actually cost them something.
• 15:49
  Matt Jacob: They sacrifice something.
• 15:51
  Matt Jacob: It's not just decoration.
• 15:53
  Matt Jacob: So if your images feel interchangeable, you could just as easily have gone somewhere else, photographed something else, said something else.
• 16:00
  Matt Jacob: It is hard for people to attach real care to them.
• 16:05
  Matt Jacob: Fourth, your work needs coherence so that you become findable.
• 16:10
  Matt Jacob: This is where Austin Cleon's uh books show your work and Steve Martin's quote, be so good, they can't ignore you.
• 16:18
  Matt Jacob: This is where they collide.
• 16:20
  Matt Jacob: People often interpret show your work as post-everything.
• 16:24
  Matt Jacob: That's not the point.
• 16:25
  Matt Jacob: The point is to let people see the shape of your practice, the ongoing inquiry, the through lines.
• 16:32
  Matt Jacob: When someone scrolls through your feed or looks at your portfolio or opens your book or sees your website, do they feel like they are entering a recognizable world or are they confronted with a different style, subject, mood, and intention every 10 seconds?
• 16:49
  Matt Jacob: Coherence does not mean repetition of the same image.
• 16:54
  Matt Jacob: It means a consistent inner logic.
• 16:57
  Matt Jacob: So being findable is not about gaming and algorithm, it is about creating a body of work that when someone stumbles across one piece of it, it makes them want to see the rest.
• 17:09
  Matt Jacob: And when they do, it all feels like it belongs together.
• 17:13
  Matt Jacob: And lastly, you must make peace with time and let go of the fantasy of quick validation.
• 17:20
  Matt Jacob: This is the one nobody likes, right?
• 17:22
  Matt Jacob: In almost every medship I've had, at some point I end up saying some version of, there is no way around the long road.
• 17:30
  Matt Jacob: Be so good they can't ignore you is not the answer people want, because it does not come with a timeline or a guarantee, and it other than it's a lot of work.
• 17:40
  Matt Jacob: It also does not mean martyr yourself to suffering.
• 17:42
  Matt Jacob: It means you find a way to enjoy the years of obscurity, the years where nobody seems to care because you know that is where your craft is being built and you can experiment.
• 17:52
  Matt Jacob: If you are constantly looking over your shoulder, asking, is it working yet?
• 17:56
  Matt Jacob: Is it working yet?
• 17:58
  Matt Jacob: You will either compromise the work to chase quick reactions, or you will burn out before it matures.
• 18:05
  Matt Jacob: Ironically, when you genuinely stop needing everyone to care, is when you are able to make meaning the main reward.
• 18:12
  Matt Jacob: And that is often when the right people begin to show up.
• 18:17
  Matt Jacob: If you put these five together, you have the outline of how to make people care about your photography.
• 18:24
  Matt Jacob: But notice what is missing.
• 18:26
  Matt Jacob: There is nothing here about posting three times a day or chasing trends or watching your analytics like a stock market.
• 18:34
  Matt Jacob: That's unhealthy.
• 18:36
  Matt Jacob: This is slower advice.
• 18:37
  Matt Jacob: It's harder and it's also much kinder.
• 18:39
  Matt Jacob: Practically, what does this look like though in your week?
• 18:42
  Matt Jacob: Well, it means committing to a project long enough for it to become a series, not just a folder of files.
• 18:48
  Matt Jacob: It means printing your work, making small zines, putting sequences on your wall and playing with them, maybe working towards a photo book of your own, even if only 50 people ever hold it.
• 19:00
  Matt Jacob: It means reading books like Steel, like an artist, and his second one, show your work, not as quick inspiration, but as reminders that the game is longer and deeper than likes.
• 19:12
  Matt Jacob: It means maybe joining a book club, my book club, or a small community where the pace of looking is slower, where you actually discuss what images do to you, not just how they were shot.
• 19:24
  Matt Jacob: It means if you want structured help working on your portfolio, presence and positioning with someone who will keep asking, why?
• 19:33
  Matt Jacob: Why this and why here?
• 19:35
  Matt Jacob: Instead of, well, how do we make this go viral?
• 19:39
  Matt Jacob: You do not have to do all of that at once, of course.
• 19:43
  Matt Jacob: You can pick one condition and work on it for a season.
• 19:46
  Matt Jacob: But at least now the problem is named in a way that you can actually act on.
• 19:52
  Matt Jacob: So, where does this leave you?
• 19:53
  Matt Jacob: Sitting there with your camera, your hard drives, your half finished projects, and that ache that says, I want this to matter to someone and I want someone to see it and I want someone to like it.
• 20:05
  Matt Jacob: First, I think it helps to genuinely accept that nobody is supposed to care about your photography at the beginning.
• 20:11
  Matt Jacob: It's not on anyone to do that, right?
• 20:14
  Matt Jacob: Everyone is busy in their own head with their own lives, managing their own storms.
• 20:18
  Matt Jacob: The world is full of good images these days.
• 20:20
  Matt Jacob: Indifference is not a verdict on your worth.
• 20:23
  Matt Jacob: It is simply a default position from where we all start.
• 20:27
  Matt Jacob: Second, if caring is really about meaning, then your job shifts.
• 20:31
  Matt Jacob: Instead of desperately trying to find an audience, your job becomes to build work that is worth caring about for a small number of people and to make yourself findable to those people over time.
• 20:45
  Matt Jacob: That might mean your first audience is 10 people who read your newsletter, maybe, or 15 people in a book club, or a handful of mentees whose work you pour into.
• 20:57
  Matt Jacob: That is still an audience.
• 20:58
  Matt Jacob: That still counts.
• 21:00
  Matt Jacob: Third, there is a quiet paradox at the heart of all of this.
• 21:04
  Matt Jacob: When you can tap into the satisfaction of making meaningful work, whether or not it is immediately validated, the need for external proof softens.
• 21:15
  Matt Jacob: You focus on the art, the craft, the storytelling, the sequencing, the print, the book, the project.
• 21:21
  Matt Jacob: And strangely, once you are no longer chasing approval or a certain gold with it, in every frame your work often becomes stronger, clearer, more liberated, and more alive.
• 21:32
  Matt Jacob: That is exactly the kind of work the right audience is drawn to.
• 21:37
  Matt Jacob: I've seen this with my own mentees and myself back in the day.
• 21:41
  Matt Jacob: The moment they stop asking, how do I get people to like this and start asking, what am I really trying to say here?
• 21:48
  Matt Jacob: And how can I say it more honestly, their images shift and their projects deepen.
• 21:53
  Matt Jacob: They become easier to position, easier to talk about, easier to share, because there is finally a spine inside of them, metaphorical spine.
• 22:02
  Matt Jacob: The portfolio becomes coherent.
• 22:05
  Matt Jacob: Their presence feels grounded, their positioning stops sounding like just marketing faff and starts sounding like truth.
• 22:13
  Matt Jacob: If you want somewhere to practice this slower, deeper way of working, well, that's why I create I care about things like my book club.
• 22:21
  Matt Jacob: And it's why I built my mentorship around portfolio, presence, and positioning rather than just technical tricks and hacks.
• 22:29
  Matt Jacob: Those spaces are not about chasing numbers.
• 22:32
  Matt Jacob: They are about learning to build work that can carry meaning forward in a world that desperately needs it.
• 22:40
  Matt Jacob: Nobody cares about your photography, at least not yet.
• 22:44
  Matt Jacob: And that is not a reason to give up.
• 22:46
  Matt Jacob: It's the opposite.
• 22:47
  Matt Jacob: It's an invitation.
• 22:48
  Matt Jacob: It means you are free to build something honest, something coherent, something necessary.
• 22:54
  Matt Jacob: So that when the right people do, and they will, when they do eventually stumble across your images, there is actually something for them to care about.
• 23:05
  Matt Jacob: Anyway, just some of my own ramblings and thoughts on something that ironically and most probably no one cares about.
• 23:14
  Matt Jacob: So that's enough from me.
• 23:16
  Matt Jacob: Merry Christmas.
• 23:18
  Matt Jacob: See you in the next one, and of course, happy shooting.