Latest / The MOOD Podcast / The Hidden Cost of Chasing Success in Photography: What They Don’t Tell You - Erik Almas, E89

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The Hidden Cost of Chasing Success in Photography: What They Don’t Tell You - Erik Almas, E89 · The MOOD Podcast

• 0:00
  Matt Jacob: Welcome to the Mood Podcast.
• 0:02
  Matt Jacob: I'm covering the art of conversation through the lens of photography and creativity, one frame at a time.
• 0:07
  Matt Jacob: I'm your host, Matt Jacob, and thanks again for joining me in today's conversation.
• 0:12
  Matt Jacob: And my guest today is Erik Almass, a Norwegian-born, San Francisco-based photographer whose work lives in that rare space between cinematic grandeur and poetic intimacy.
• 0:25
  Matt Jacob: And for over two decades, Eric has crafted images that feel like still frames from a dream layered, intentional, emotionally rich, but yet somehow rooted in something real.
• 0:35
  Matt Jacob: His visuals are instantly recognizable Majestic landscapes, soft humor moments, a quiet surrealism that holds your gaze just long enough to make you feel something you weren't expecting Beautiful.
• 0:49
  Matt Jacob: But Eric isn't just a master of the image, he's a seeker, and beneath the campaigns and the accolades is someone deeply reflective about identity, artistic voice and the space between what we show and what we feel.
• 1:03
  Matt Jacob: And in my chat with him, we explore the identity crisis that shaped his philosophy as an artist, the discipline of turning creativity into a daily ritual, what it means to find truth in visuals that are often constructed and composed.
• 1:17
  Matt Jacob: We also talk about the complexity of being both commercial and soulful how to honor your artistic integrity while working in an industry that often prizes performance over presence and, perhaps most powerfully, we get into why chasing your inner voice might be the most terrifying and essential thing you ever do.
• 1:37
  Matt Jacob: This episode is a meditation on perception, purpose and the courage it takes to keep reinventing the way we see.
• 1:44
  Matt Jacob: So here we go, Eric Almas.
• 1:46
  Matt Jacob: Eric Almas.
• 1:56
  Matt Jacob: Welcome.
• 1:57
  Matt Jacob: So much to the Mood Podcast.
• 1:59
  Matt Jacob: Thanks for joining me, Thanks for having me.
• 2:02
  Erik Almas: Appreciate it for joining me.
• 2:03
  Matt Jacob: Thanks for having me Appreciate it so much to dive into Not enough time which is the story of our lives, but I wanted to kind of break into this conversation with a quote I saw, I think it was on your website, and it said I create emotion and energy in images, motion and homes.
• 2:24
  Matt Jacob: Tell me a little bit more about that Kind of unpack that for me, about kind of what you do and why you do it.
• 2:30
  Erik Almas: So this is maybe five, six years ago, before the pandemic, I was a bit lost with my photography.
• 2:43
  Erik Almas: Not lost, but you try to reinvent right, or do something more, something different, something better, and every time I told myself I need to create something new.
• 2:55
  Erik Almas: There was a reluctance there and at the same time, I'd started doing some real estate projects and everything I was curious about was architecture and design, how to create spaces and how they feel when you entered into them.
• 3:12
  Erik Almas: I'd also, by default, started to direct a lot more and I didn't really know where I would go with my life and career, and I had a coach at the time and he goes.
• 3:27
  Erik Almas: This is simple.
• 3:28
  Erik Almas: You just got to step away from your singular identity of being a photographer.
• 3:33
  Erik Almas: Forget about it.
• 3:35
  Erik Almas: What you are is a creator, and that creation can have many forms.
• 3:39
  Erik Almas: So let's find a way where we redefined Eric and what you tell yourself about this need to take more pictures, because you're creative in every moment, all day long.
• 3:52
  Erik Almas: You're like this passion is created in a lot of ways.
• 3:59
  Erik Almas: I'm a creator or a creative creating atmosphere in spaces through light, through photography, through film and through design Something like that.
• 4:14
  Erik Almas: So we sort of reshaped my own narrative about who I was and what I felt I owed to this craft of photography, and it liberated me.
• 4:25
  Erik Almas: To be honest, now, I didn't feel guilty when I did not look at pictures, did not take as many pictures.
• 4:32
  Erik Almas: I felt liberated to dabble in design.
• 4:36
  Erik Almas: Look at design.
• 4:37
  Erik Almas: My Instagram feed was 95% design, 5% photography.
• 4:43
  Erik Almas: 95% design, 5% photography.
• 4:49
  Erik Almas: Now I can look back at that and write five years in and I could say that I've informed the way I take pictures too.
• 4:52
  Erik Almas: So I think there was a letting go in making that statement for me.
• 4:57
  Erik Almas: So that's where that came from.
• 5:00
  Matt Jacob: I love it, that kind of sense of freedom from really kind of following a path that is truly you right.
• 5:07
  Matt Jacob: It's truly the voice from within and not really caring about where, which lane you have to stay in or which label you have to put on yourself.
• 5:15
  Matt Jacob: So I think that's a really good lesson for a lot of creatives who aren't.
• 5:19
  Matt Jacob: You know, I speak to people all the time.
• 5:21
  Matt Jacob: They're like I'm not sure what to do.
• 5:22
  Matt Jacob: I like to do what to do, I like to do that and I like to do that, but commercial clients want this from me, so maybe I'm just gonna stick with that.
• 5:29
  Matt Jacob: I think that's really interesting, certainly with your journey and we'll talk about how you kind of started with it, um, soon.
• 5:38
  Matt Jacob: But something I've really noticed with with your work I've been following you for a while, certainly not not throughout your whole career, but enough to kind of see certainly an evolution in your artistry which I think we all kind of strive for.
• 5:52
  Matt Jacob: But we always think, well, I need this finished product all the time, I need to be this, I need that body of work to kind of stamp who I am.
• 5:59
  Matt Jacob: So tell me a little bit about that evolution where this kind of desire to kind of consistently create but consistently evolve at the same time, without being distracted.
• 6:14
  Matt Jacob: There's always this kind of pull between the two.
• 6:18
  Matt Jacob: Would that be correct?
• 6:20
  Erik Almas: Oh my gosh.
• 6:20
  Erik Almas: Distractions are there all the time, and to be focused is the hardest thing of all, I think.
• 6:29
  Erik Almas: How far back should I go?
• 6:30
  Erik Almas: Where do you want me to start?
• 6:32
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, start from the beginning, when you were 11, 12, whenever you got your first camera.
• 6:41
  Erik Almas: Got my first camera, 18, 19.
• 6:44
  Erik Almas: So I didn't get it that early Friends of mine had one.
• 6:49
  Erik Almas: I was in the National Defense, which at the time was mandatory in Norway, took a darkroom course, got myself a Canon EO650.
• 7:03
  Erik Almas: Started dabbling in it.
• 7:04
  Erik Almas: I was a DJ at the time, so I would be a mailman in the army during the days and then I would work as a DJ at night.
• 7:22
  Erik Almas: That was my one year of national defense.
• 7:26
  Erik Almas: I got out of that sort of lifestyle, just disenchanted with not in music but the music I played.
• 7:35
  Erik Almas: I started listening to all kinds of other music jazz, classical and really started seeking outside of what I was doing.
• 7:42
  Erik Almas: And then I just needed to do something else.
• 7:46
  Erik Almas: I had then started taking pictures, a lot of ski pictures, and I thought photography sounds like fun, maybe I could be a sports photographer.
• 7:54
  Erik Almas: And then a meeting with a photographer in my hometown who had studied photography in the US.
• 8:02
  Erik Almas: She said you can't study photography here in Norway, you got to go to the US.
• 8:04
  Erik Almas: He said you can't study photography here in Norway, you got to go to the US.
• 8:07
  Erik Almas: And that one sentence sent me across the pond to the US to study.
• 8:12
  Erik Almas: I thought I would stay for a couple of years, go back, work for a local newspaper, do sports, and then I guess I found photography at a different level than just snapping images but creating them.
• 8:34
  Erik Almas: I did four years of school.
• 8:35
  Erik Almas: I assisted for two and a half years and then I ended up staying here in the US and I think two years into assisting I took one photograph randomly that sort of sparked this recognition in me.
• 9:02
  Erik Almas: The whole thing through school was to find your voice as a photographer.
• 9:06
  Erik Almas: When you talk about evolution, there's a lot of searching and exploring during that time right, which school should be.
• 9:12
  Erik Almas: And then I come, take this one image and I felt this crazy resonance with me and I thought this is all I want to do.
• 9:23
  Erik Almas: This is amazing.
• 9:24
  Erik Almas: I kind of did it.
• 9:25
  Erik Almas: I created something that is uniquely me.
• 9:28
  Erik Almas: I felt at the time you can't really know this when you're in it, but in looking back I did it.
• 9:38
  Erik Almas: There's a clear reference right to Norwegian paintings, lücher culture.
• 9:42
  Erik Almas: All that stuff was baked into that picture.
• 9:45
  Erik Almas: Through that from my style, which is still with me today, it's still sort of a recreation of those elements that are recognized in that photograph.
• 9:56
  Erik Almas: That was the beginning of what has been a really wonderful commercial career in photography.
• 10:08
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, I want to kind of stop there and rewind a little bit.
• 10:12
  Matt Jacob: To your apprenticeship, I would say, but your assisting job Was that with Jim Erickson?
• 10:21
  Matt Jacob: Was that the kind of mentorship with Jim?
• 10:23
  Matt Jacob: But is that with Jim Erickson?
• 10:25
  Matt Jacob: Was that the kind of mentorship with Jim?
• 10:27
  Matt Jacob: Tell me a little bit more about, first of all, actually tell me a little bit more about this learning of a voice.
• 10:33
  Matt Jacob: You know you go to photography school and so many people out there want to jump onto YouTube and learn technical skills, settings, gear, lenses, even style, even like an aesthetic style to some, some degree.
• 10:47
  Matt Jacob: Where why is voice important?
• 10:50
  Matt Jacob: How would you define a voice, finding a voice, what does that actually mean as a photographer or an artist, a reflection of your hopes, desiresnings.
• 11:04
  Erik Almas: It's a reflection of who you are, what you have experienced, what you want to experience, where you're going.
• 11:10
  Erik Almas: A style is really just a reflection of you as an artist, forward and backward.
• 11:18
  Erik Almas: I think the style leans on what you have experienced all through your life, sort of the innate part, and then there's the yearnings and desires, right that pushes forward, and then, when that big together, your styles sort of come together and then it evolves right through your life experience.
• 11:39
  Matt Jacob: I think when you felt, with this pivotal moment which is fascinating because I had a similar moment in my photography journey and I can remember it to this day and it was almost like a light bulb moment Ah, this is, everything clicks.
• 11:54
  Matt Jacob: This is amazing.
• 11:55
  Matt Jacob: But I couldn't actually looking back on it.
• 11:57
  Matt Jacob: I now know, and sounds like you're saying the same thing, like you don't really know at the time when you're in it.
• 12:01
  Matt Jacob: It was not like, oh wow, this is it.
• 12:04
  Matt Jacob: I know what I want to do with the rest of my life and this is my voice and this is my style, right, so it's a whole process so there was this photographer, jock mcdonald, old school, that would come into one of my teachers class and he defined it so beautifully.
• 12:24
  Erik Almas: I'm not sure if he came up with this thing, but he said just at the time right, it was magazines.
• 12:29
  Erik Almas: So he said just write about 50 pictures of magazines that you like and then write down what it is about each one, that's you like it, what you like about it, and that list would be your style.
• 12:42
  Erik Almas: And it was fascinating to me that you can sort of analyze your way to a place and then you define.
• 12:49
  Erik Almas: I mean, if I look at any photographer, I can sort of tell what their style is almost instantly, because you're drawn to certain things subconsciously.
• 12:58
  Erik Almas: Some people will never have someone staring in the camera, for instance.
• 13:03
  Erik Almas: Other people would shoot really wide, so it should be really tight.
• 13:06
  Erik Almas: All this stuff is baked into your DNA Anyhow.
• 13:09
  Erik Almas: So that's where it started.
• 13:10
  Erik Almas: And when you start being conscious about certain elements, right, then you start incorporating that when it comes to light, place, subject matter, tight, wide, all those things, and that specific moment that I had I didn't recognize it when I photographed it, but I did bring the elements one model, one dress, one place, and it took this photograph, and it was when I scanned the film and sat with it afterwards that I recognized that this is just saying to me somehow I'm dating myself now and I talk about scanning film, but yeah.
• 13:54
  Matt Jacob: So what did you find?
• 13:56
  Matt Jacob: How did your voice evolve?
• 13:57
  Matt Jacob: Or what did your voice evolve into at the time?
• 14:00
  Matt Jacob: At this point you kind of realized, okay, this is a style that I like.
• 14:05
  Matt Jacob: It's a little bit style, being a little bit more tangible, a little bit more aesthetic, a little bit more to do with composition and colors and subject matter.
• 14:12
  Matt Jacob: How did the voice, your voice, evolve from that and what did it kind of evolve into?
• 14:18
  Erik Almas: Yeah, big questions, man, big questions, um, uh, so there was two themes in my work, I think, at the time um, big, open landscapes, vistos, and in that setting, either a female or an older male.
• 14:39
  Erik Almas: I didn't know why at the time, but as a male photographer I was attracted to female.
• 14:49
  Erik Almas: I didn't think that was my year of name or desire.
• 14:53
  Erik Almas: And then I talked about this briefly before in some of my tutorials.
• 14:59
  Erik Almas: But I grew up without my biological father, so I had this.
• 15:07
  Erik Almas: I photographed a ton of older men at that time.
• 15:12
  Erik Almas: My first real assignment was out of that portfolio where I photographed an older man.
• 15:24
  Erik Almas: So it was all personal work at the time.
• 15:26
  Erik Almas: Right, you just tried to build a portfolio, you tried to evolve and craft pictures that would be a body of work solid enough for you to be recognized or hired.
• 15:36
  Erik Almas: So in that process there was females I was attracted to and there was these older men that I was yearning to know and that became the basis of what I do today.
• 15:50
  Matt Jacob: And that still carries through to still the work you do today.
• 15:54
  Erik Almas: Yes and no.
• 15:55
  Erik Almas: So my curiosity obviously changed, right, I think through working with Jin I got parched, so that yearning for this unknown father figure settled.
• 16:08
  Erik Almas: I actually met my father right before his passing.
• 16:14
  Erik Almas: He then finally reached out.
• 16:17
  Erik Almas: I say my dad.
• 16:18
  Erik Almas: It's hard for me to speak about my dad like that, because I have a dad that's been with me since I was nine, 10 years old.
• 16:24
  Erik Almas: It's my stepfather, who's the dad to my three siblings.
• 16:29
  Erik Almas: So I have a really solid guy.
• 16:31
  Erik Almas: But still there's a curiosity about who that was and who he is.
• 16:36
  Erik Almas: But part of me is that thing that I don't know.
• 16:38
  Erik Almas: So, yeah, it carries through.
• 16:43
  Erik Almas: I think you carry that with you your whole life.
• 16:48
  Erik Almas: But I don't see that as present in my work now.
• 16:53
  Matt Jacob: And if I were to do a filmic project, right, it wouldn't be about that yearning, it would be about something else speaking of coaches and and mentors, I want to kind of dive into that mentorship you had, or the recipient of under Jim Erickson, and how that really really impacted your career, if at all.
• 17:15
  Matt Jacob: Because I think having a certainly for someone who maybe didn't have any relationship with a biological father, I can understand that connection there and that need of having almost a father figure but someone who could guide them through a journey and interest and a passion that they have.
• 17:33
  Matt Jacob: I think that's missing these days because I think a lot of people turn to their YouTubes and their social medias and there is a lot of the time that isn't that connection, that in-person or that relation connection, relationship connection with a specific craft and journey.
• 17:50
  Matt Jacob: Tell me about your experience through those two and a half years and what you learned that you might not have learned we'll never know but you might not have learned if you didn't have such a strong mentorship experience.
• 18:03
  Erik Almas: So that experience was, I mean, life-changing and extraordinary for me.
• 18:08
  Erik Almas: The classic way to enter commercial photography than I did it was craft a portfolio, show it around or meet people and learn through assisting.
• 18:30
  Erik Almas: So those are two ways to get in the door.
• 18:33
  Erik Almas: I chose the assisting route and I couldn't have had a better mentor than Jin, in that he was unafraid of me.
• 18:49
  Erik Almas: One being hungry, ambitious and wanting to really be a photographer.
• 18:57
  Erik Almas: He supported it always.
• 19:00
  Erik Almas: If I wanted to borrow any gear I could do so.
• 19:04
  Erik Almas: They had more powerful computers at the time at his office.
• 19:09
  Erik Almas: I would sit there from five in the day ended to midnight working.
• 19:15
  Erik Almas: So there was no limitations that he put on.
• 19:18
  Erik Almas: Oh, you can't speak to my clients, it was nothing.
• 19:20
  Erik Almas: But whatever I could do to help, I would take four by five cameras home to Norway for Christmas holidays, for two, three weeks.
• 19:29
  Erik Almas: It's like whatever, take whatever you need and not shoot.
• 19:31
  Erik Almas: So that was the confidence part.
• 19:36
  Erik Almas: I think, from what I heard and seen with other photographers, they get a little territorial lesson.
• 19:44
  Erik Almas: You know these are my clients, you help me, don't talk to anyone.
• 19:49
  Erik Almas: That kind of spirit.
• 19:50
  Erik Almas: Tim was always introducing me as an extraordinary photographer to his clients.
• 19:54
  Erik Almas: He helped me get my first job.
• 19:56
  Erik Almas: So that was the basis of it, and I did not know that at the time.
• 20:00
  Erik Almas: But to have someone that would be interested in mentoring and sharing and supporting without any limitations was super, super helpful.
• 20:12
  Erik Almas: And maternity was also super.
• 20:15
  Erik Almas: Old school I painted garages, I cleaned his cars.
• 20:21
  Erik Almas: I did all of the things that did not be acceptable in today's world.
• 20:27
  Erik Almas: Right, if I hired an assistant which is good in some ways right, you hire someone and you hire them for the job and not for other jobs, but for him being more of that old advertising guard, it's like be at work whenever and then there's office hours, so you do whatever I needed to do.
• 20:49
  Erik Almas: But then on the other side, right, that sounds kind of terrible, but on the other side, I think I was a week into the job and we're traveling to Morocco and Egypt shooting Audi cars.
• 21:04
  Erik Almas: It's like extraordinary.
• 21:06
  Erik Almas: So I didn't really know this world existed, right?
• 21:11
  Erik Almas: And then suddenly you're traveling the world, seeing and experiencing things that you wouldn't think possible on an advertising budget.
• 21:22
  Erik Almas: So it's like this is what I want to do.
• 21:25
  Erik Almas: This is amazing amazing he's.
• 21:28
  Erik Almas: I had a jaguar and a ranger in the garage.
• 21:30
  Erik Almas: You know house in the fanciest neighborhood and he was a creative.
• 21:33
  Erik Almas: Uh, it was inspiring how is that life?
• 21:37
  Matt Jacob: how is that in that um, I guess, that sector of the industry?
• 21:41
  Matt Jacob: How how has that changed over the years?
• 21:44
  Matt Jacob: We're talking a few decades, I guess, but how would you perceive that world now and how do people kind of navigate into it if that's what they want to do, and is it worth it?
• 22:00
  Erik Almas: You know it's a tough question.
• 22:01
  Erik Almas: I think about this a lot because what we see today, I would say it's super competitive.
• 22:07
  Erik Almas: You get paid today, which you did 20 years ago still a great living but it has not followed inflation at all.
• 22:14
  Erik Almas: But I left it.
• 22:18
  Erik Almas: I would shoot way more than I do today, but nobody's spending money doing small sort of pictures or a one-day shoot anymore.
• 22:28
  Erik Almas: That money goes into digital advertising.
• 22:31
  Erik Almas: So all the jobs that's left are for the larger companies that do everything.
• 22:39
  Erik Almas: As in there's multiple products, multiple markets, I need to have a specific voice for each market so they hire.
• 22:49
  Erik Almas: It's all of it, right?
• 22:51
  Erik Almas: So I would shoot a lot more.
• 22:55
  Erik Almas: Now I shoot a lot less and the pie is shrinking.
• 23:01
  Erik Almas: Do you know, scott Galloway?
• 23:04
  Matt Jacob: Yes.
• 23:05
  Erik Almas: Interesting character.
• 23:06
  Erik Almas: He said if you're over 40 and in traditional media, hang on for dear life and try to be in it for as long as you can.
• 23:16
  Erik Almas: If you're under 40 and in traditional advertising or media, just get out as fast as you can.
• 23:22
  Matt Jacob: So why?
• 23:24
  Matt Jacob: Because it's a bit of a boys club or it's just too competitive no, because it's a, because it's a dying industry, right you already need a name in it to survive in it.
• 23:33
  Matt Jacob: That makes sense.
• 23:34
  Erik Almas: So I mean it's, it's well paid, it's lucrative.
• 23:39
  Erik Almas: If you could crack it today, I'd say go for for it.
• 23:42
  Erik Almas: It's unbelievable.
• 23:43
  Erik Almas: But I think the young art directors today don't think.
• 23:47
  Erik Almas: Maybe if they read archive or they follow sort of the advertising news, maybe, right, they will know about me.
• 23:57
  Erik Almas: But if they're on social media and TikTok all the time, they don't know who Eric Alves is.
• 24:01
  Erik Almas: They even know the Jacobs and the ones with millions of followers, right?
• 24:05
  Erik Almas: So those are the photographers that they would probably like to work with when they're creating campaigns.
• 24:10
  Erik Almas: So if I were to give advice, I wouldn't say take my approach, what I did then.
• 24:16
  Erik Almas: If I were to start over today, I would look at other ways to try to crack that up.
• 24:20
  Erik Almas: It's a lot more direct to these different companies than it is through advertising agencies, I think.
• 24:25
  Erik Almas: But then AI is coming too right, so it's complicated.
• 24:30
  Erik Almas: Are you even going to chase it?
• 24:32
  Matt Jacob: Well, let's touch on that now.
• 24:33
  Matt Jacob: I mean I wanted to talk about that a bit later, but since you mentioned it, I think that kind of blends in with these different genres that you've experimented with very successfully and kind of putting this all together.
• 24:46
  Matt Jacob: I wanted to ask you know, you started in that advertising world and you, you, you.
• 24:52
  Matt Jacob: Now you're a multi-disciplinary creative right.
• 24:55
  Matt Jacob: So how did all that come about?
• 24:58
  Matt Jacob: You know you've got different interests, but was it commercial pressures as well, as you saw the industry changing, or how did that kind of evolution start?
• 25:06
  Erik Almas: It started with my dad or my stepdad being an engineer and I thought you know, I'm going to go to photography school.
• 25:16
  Erik Almas: They were a media forward, they had a computer department.
• 25:21
  Erik Almas: So I thought, oh, I'm going to do a computer class every semester.
• 25:24
  Erik Almas: And that was with the first old school Macintosh.
• 25:27
  Erik Almas: It was okay, this is a mouse.
• 25:31
  Erik Almas: That's where it started and that was in 95.
• 25:36
  Erik Almas: So I came out of there as the first generation of photographers really that used, uh, photoshop and the post process as an extension of the craft of taking pictures, of photography.
• 25:49
  Erik Almas: So that put me in a great situation right where I could put pizza pieces and parts together.
• 25:55
  Erik Almas: I wasn't initially such a conceptual figure, but I would sort of paint with the photography a bit.
• 26:02
  Erik Almas: I would add clouds so that people there and there, and add buildings, and then that led to an advertising career really doing conceptual work.
• 26:11
  Erik Almas: How can we fit parts and pieces together?
• 26:15
  Erik Almas: That doesn't necessarily belong together, but tell a narrative within the frame.
• 26:19
  Erik Almas: And so I got lucky to fall into that and it's still there, but that's right for the taking with AI.
• 26:25
  Erik Almas: So I'm not sure where that's going to go from here on out so you played a, you played around a lot with AI, didn't you?
• 26:35
  Matt Jacob: and you, you have this and correct me if I'm wrong you do you have this kind of one part of your style is, you know this, composite photography.
• 26:44
  Matt Jacob: You know that the photoshop elements that the more the kind of the creative design combined with photography and ai almost seamlessly blends with that, and I know you, you experimented a lot with ai in terms of both the composite side, but also just the raw generation of of.
• 27:01
  Matt Jacob: I know you said you don't really know where that goes, but how does it do you feel that being a permanent part of your work, certainly in the advertising or editorial space?
• 27:13
  Erik Almas: I think it will be for a minute.
• 27:14
  Erik Almas: So now it's a part of it's always a part of almost every picture, but it's by new right Pieces here here, pieces there, yeah, but it's a transitional period, right, and I think there's going to be a divergent between what's authentic and what's real and what's crafted photography, what feels human.
• 27:39
  Erik Almas: I think there will be a premium to it and then there's going to be all the stuff that doesn't have to be that and it won't be someone coming to me to generate those pictures.
• 27:52
  Erik Almas: I think that will be an art director, someone in an office that will just push that out.
• 27:56
  Erik Almas: So I think the way it is now is us, this visual that dives in and thinks it's exciting, something that we would incorporate into our work.
• 28:09
  Erik Almas: I'm estimating an assignment now where one of the options is to generate all the backgrounds in AI and then we're adding the talent into it.
• 28:18
  Erik Almas: But as these generators get better, those talent will emote like any other talent and you can't tell the difference.
• 28:31
  Erik Almas: Then, as I said, I think that will be one bucket that I won't be a part of and then hopefully I will be, you know, considered for the bucket that is real people in real places.
• 28:44
  Erik Almas: I don't think your photography will go away, I think, but then it's going to be more competitive again.
• 28:52
  Matt Jacob: It's going to be hard, I think, for yeah, we're just shrinking, shrinking the pool, shrinking the pond, don't we really?
• 28:58
  Matt Jacob: Um, but it also on the on the flip side and I talk about this as well I totally agree with what you're saying in terms of the more authentic, the more real, the more human photos will become, more valuable.
• 29:09
  Matt Jacob: You know, people would always want that.
• 29:12
  Matt Jacob: So if you can lean into that somehow as you navigate a future, especially the younger generation, then I think that's where the value is going to align, because AI is going just down one road and we can see the finite kind of result of that, I guess, where, like you said, talent won't be needed.
• 29:30
  Matt Jacob: It'd be so realistic.
• 29:32
  Matt Jacob: The only way you could tell is through the XF data or lack of.
• 29:37
  Matt Jacob: So, yeah, I totally agree with you.
• 29:39
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, I totally agree with you.
• 29:40
  Matt Jacob: And when you were certainly going back to kind of the experimentation, kind of phase, design, phase of composite photography, photoshop, did you get a lot of criticism for that in terms of the combination of real photography with fake photography?
• 30:01
  Erik Almas: Yeah, that was a conversation in the beginning, right?
• 30:03
  Erik Almas: I mean, when I started photography school in 95, I had a photojournalism class and we talked about the ethics of cropping the picture or not, yes, like.
• 30:15
  Erik Almas: And then, uh, it was just a blip, really, because digital photography was this tidal wave that came, so that ideal, real photography disappeared.
• 30:29
  Erik Almas: It was just early, early, early on that I felt that there was some pushback on.
• 30:34
  Erik Almas: Well, but that's not photography.
• 30:36
  Erik Almas: It's like you call it what you want, I'm.
• 30:40
  Erik Almas: I'm crafting something that my heart, you know, swells when I do it.
• 30:45
  Erik Almas: So it's Phil's white bucket.
• 30:48
  Erik Almas: There's an art to it, so you could call it composite photography.
• 30:53
  Erik Almas: The discussion was mute to me because I was so excited and passionate about it.
• 30:58
  Erik Almas: Yeah, it's like, okay, if you have your opinion, I'm going to go ahead and do this thing because it's so awesome.
• 31:06
  Matt Jacob: Tell us a little bit more about that.
• 31:09
  Matt Jacob: I guess on the commercial side of things, people didn't care right.
• 31:12
  Matt Jacob: It's just they want work done.
• 31:14
  Matt Jacob: They want work done.
• 31:14
  Matt Jacob: But in terms of the journey of your business I mean, I think a lot of people certainly these days whether it's more competitive or not, more saturated or not, I don't really want to kind of think about that, because it's just different.
• 31:28
  Matt Jacob: The industry now is different to the industry five years ago, let alone 20 years ago.
• 31:33
  Matt Jacob: I'm not going to ask you to pinpoint one secret to success, but you've had a very successful, sustainable career and you've had to adapt, clearly.
• 31:45
  Matt Jacob: But you've always had a common theme of, like you said earlier, doing something that really swells your heart, what you really love to do, and you can see that beautiful common thread throughout all of your work, whether it's in motion, still composite, whatever it might be.
• 32:01
  Matt Jacob: That is something that everyone should be able to learn from and be inspired by, like I am.
• 32:08
  Matt Jacob: But tell us the secret sauce how have you built a successful solopreneurship or entrepreneurship as a creative in all of these different facets?
• 32:22
  Matt Jacob: What is what is?
• 32:24
  Matt Jacob: What is the secret?
• 32:24
  Matt Jacob: Because it it looks simple and, oh yeah, you can just go and get work.
• 32:29
  Matt Jacob: We all know it's.
• 32:30
  Matt Jacob: It's extremely, extremely difficult, with a lot of hard work behind it.
• 32:34
  Matt Jacob: But can you give us some insights as to how you've looking back, how you've you know, a couple of tips and a couple of kind of inherent success stories that have allowed you to build this, this career?
• 32:45
  Matt Jacob: That's a big question.
• 32:47
  Matt Jacob: I know that's a really big question.
• 32:50
  Matt Jacob: I'll ask some smaller questions soon.
• 32:52
  Erik Almas: I think my answer in some ways will be a little simplified and maybe not applicable to today, but one was the mentorship at gym that you asked about.
• 33:06
  Erik Almas: Like I said, he was unafraid to share that.
• 33:09
  Erik Almas: Eric is a great photographer.
• 33:12
  Erik Almas: You should see his work.
• 33:14
  Erik Almas: He was very generous with me wanting to make it, generous with me wanting to make it.
• 33:29
  Erik Almas: My very first assignment was a job that Jim got me.
• 33:32
  Erik Almas: He said I can't do this, but I think Eric would like to take a stab at it.
• 33:37
  Erik Almas: His studio manager produced it.
• 33:39
  Erik Almas: His in-house retoucher retouched it and I got paid a little bit.
• 33:48
  Erik Almas: Then another job like this came around, and at the time it was an American investment firm that had bought the Copacabana Palace in Rio.
• 33:55
  Erik Almas: I think they had $35,000.
• 33:59
  Erik Almas: And that was nothing to Jim to travel the crew to, you know, to rio, to shoot this, shoot this thing.
• 34:08
  Erik Almas: But I thought I could take a stab at it.
• 34:10
  Erik Almas: It was a friend of mine at school that I knew had lived in rio.
• 34:14
  Erik Almas: That was a photographer, and I said do you want to go?
• 34:18
  Erik Almas: Can you produce this?
• 34:19
  Erik Almas: Do you know people?
• 34:20
  Erik Almas: Can you?
• 34:20
  Erik Almas: Can you figure this?
• 34:21
  Erik Almas: So we went on a scrap budget.
• 34:24
  Erik Almas: The two of us hired a great local producer and that was my first campaign, had a time of my life Unbelievable, and I think those were the first two sort of bricks in the wall for me.
• 34:45
  Erik Almas: The way it got recognized in the US advertising market was these award shows.
• 34:54
  Erik Almas: So Communication Arts, photodristic, news, murphy's, uh, american photography there's also four or five of these.
• 35:06
  Erik Almas: So through working with Jen um, I saw what he did right.
• 35:13
  Erik Almas: It was marketing yourself to the decision makers, which is the art producers, art buyers, and that's the same today.
• 35:21
  Erik Almas: So you gotta reach those.
• 35:22
  Erik Almas: And then you gotta be in those award shows, because that's where the art producers, art buyers, and that's the same today.
• 35:24
  Erik Almas: So you got to reach those and then you're going to be in those award shows because that's where the art directors look.
• 35:30
  Erik Almas: So I started submitting to those every time.
• 35:34
  Erik Almas: I mean I think it cost at the time a hundred dollars to submit a picture.
• 35:39
  Erik Almas: It's like I didn't have any money.
• 35:42
  Erik Almas: I have to spend thousands and thousands of dollars every year submitting.
• 35:46
  Erik Almas: There was communication arts.
• 35:54
  Erik Almas: I made it in there a couple of times and then they had still, I think to this day, have this section called Up and Coming or New Talent.
• 36:01
  Erik Almas: Can't remember quite the name of it, but I was featured there, section called Up and Coming or New Talent I can't remember quite the name of it, but I was featured there and I was still freelance assisting here and there, working a little bit at the gym and then other visiting photographers to the Bay Area, and I remember when that came out I just thought I kind of made it and I don't think I assisted after that.
• 36:22
  Erik Almas: I kind of made it and I don't think I existed after that.
• 36:27
  Erik Almas: The only way I can compare to today is that you go crazy viral and everyone in the industry sort of sees this one picture or film that you took.
• 36:37
  Erik Almas: It would be the same as you're creating something that gets millions and millions of views and suddenly you are someone that would be top of mind when they had a campaign you know that they wanted to create, so that was the next so your advice to people is to go viral on social media.
• 36:58
  Erik Almas: Got it writing that down okay, so I just tried to compare it to today, because I just made it into the CA photo angle again.
• 37:09
  Erik Almas: I'm not sure if it has any meaning, but I remember thinking that I bought my first apartment in San Francisco and I submitted my work to them, and I thought, oh my gosh, if I make it in, I'll be fine, for this year I have mortgage payment to make, and it really came down to that one inclusion, so I simplified a bit.
• 37:34
  Erik Almas: What's underneath there, though, is a lot of taking pictures right To shoot, to shoot, to shoot, and I remember Jind saying to me at the time when I was ready to leave.
• 37:45
  Erik Almas: He said that you're the only assistant I had throughout through my career that have actually taken pictures while working for me, and I think it's a little bit like that today, too, that you work and you admire the work of others.
• 37:58
  Erik Almas: You want to get somewhere, but you don't actually work at it, so I would say the ticket is first craft, and then have someone that can vouch for you or get you in the door, and then it's to be recognized, and then, from there, there was a few sort of benchmark campaigns that again made it into the award shows that recognized it.
• 38:27
  Erik Almas: That's been my career for 25 years now.
• 38:34
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, and now today?
• 38:40
  Matt Jacob: What does the business look like today?
• 38:41
  Matt Jacob: Very similar.
• 38:42
  Matt Jacob: What are you kind of working on?
• 38:44
  Matt Jacob: Are you working much or are you taking what comes your way, rather than kind of crafting to really get out there?
• 38:53
  Erik Almas: So three things to this Market is up and down.
• 38:57
  Erik Almas: I have had slow periods.
• 38:59
  Erik Almas: I had extraordinary periods.
• 39:01
  Erik Almas: I thought about this not too long ago.
• 39:04
  Erik Almas: Periods I had extraordinary periods.
• 39:05
  Erik Almas: I thought about this not too long ago because financially I'm doing fine.
• 39:10
  Erik Almas: In the slow periods, I said when the economy in the US gets uncertain, I said now I get a lot of calls for reuse, right To extending the license of pictures, and when it's busy, nobody want to.
• 39:31
  Erik Almas: Let's make a new campaign.
• 39:33
  Erik Almas: Economy is thriving, so it balances itself out in some ways.
• 39:40
  Erik Almas: I'm afraid now you know with younger photographers, social media, the ease of just recreating pictures.
• 39:49
  Erik Almas: There's no solid ownership contract.
• 39:52
  Erik Almas: People give away unlimited use.
• 39:54
  Erik Almas: Just okay, I just have it.
• 39:57
  Erik Almas: $200 you could have if you could own these pictures.
• 40:00
  Erik Almas: I mean, that's in the world that I came up in.
• 40:05
  Erik Almas: That was just blasphemy.
• 40:07
  Erik Almas: If you were to give away your copyright to the pictures like a buyout, they'd call it.
• 40:11
  Erik Almas: That would be in like the $40,000, $50,000 to $100,000 range.
• 40:16
  Erik Almas: If you were to own my art.
• 40:17
  Erik Almas: It's numbers that people outside the US would just gasp at, but that was kind of the benchmark.
• 40:27
  Matt Jacob: And what is it now?
• 40:27
  Matt Jacob: How would you assess that now?
• 40:29
  Erik Almas: Nobody buys unlimited usage from me, it's just too much.
• 40:32
  Erik Almas: So it's two, three or four years upfront, sometimes five, and then that runs out.
• 40:40
  Erik Almas: There's often a renegotiation right If they want to continue running that campaign.
• 40:46
  Erik Almas: What that would cost.
• 40:48
  Erik Almas: More often than not now, when there's a purchase order, they like to have a re-license already negotiated.
• 40:56
  Erik Almas: So within the purchase order or the contract, this is what we pay for the fee, this is the production cost.
• 41:02
  Erik Almas: This would be the reuse for both talent and for the photography.
• 41:06
  Erik Almas: So I think there's a maybe this will come about when ai really gets a foothold, that the original photography again, it will be valued on a usage base.
• 41:20
  Matt Jacob: Many people might not want to be but really commercially won't, won't, won't, the won't.
• 41:25
  Matt Jacob: These companies and these I presume they're advertorials and advertising agencies that are buying these images from when they just turn to ai, because then they don't have to pay these license fees yeah, that's very possible.
• 41:39
  Erik Almas: I talk to my wife about it all the time.
• 41:40
  Erik Almas: Right, what does it look like for us two, three, five years down the road?
• 41:47
  Erik Almas: It's like what am I going to do?
• 41:52
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, do you have an answer?
• 41:54
  Erik Almas: yet think photography will go away.
• 42:00
  Erik Almas: So I'm going to craft pictures.
• 42:02
  Erik Almas: I want to make films, and then there's the design part of spaces so?
• 42:09
  Matt Jacob: so what is what does a win look like to you now?
• 42:14
  Matt Jacob: Like what is, I guess, success?
• 42:17
  Matt Jacob: But you do a job or you have a plan and you move forward and you talk about the next three, five, 10 years, whatever it might be Today and in the future.
• 42:27
  Matt Jacob: What does that win look like?
• 42:30
  Matt Jacob: How would you mark a success down If I.
• 42:38
  Erik Almas: I was about to say if I get six, seven jobs a year, I would be super happy.
• 42:42
  Erik Almas: I don't have it handy, but just as I thought about that, 20 some years ago, I wrote down my this thing called my ideal life, and in there it said I would do six seven jobs a year.
• 42:59
  Erik Almas: Yeah, so advertising wise, right, that's a great living.
• 43:02
  Erik Almas: And in there it said I would do six, seven jobs a year.
• 43:04
  Erik Almas: Yeah, so advertising-wise right, that's a great living.
• 43:06
  Erik Almas: It's a really great living.
• 43:08
  Erik Almas: That's a 1% living in the US and it's fun, I have to say.
• 43:16
  Erik Almas: So, when you're a photographer right, you're left with your own thoughts, your own creativity.
• 43:23
  Erik Almas: So you're in a bit of a photographer, right, you're left with your own thoughts, your own creativity.
• 43:27
  Erik Almas: So you're in a bit of a vacuum, right, you lean heavily on what do I want to say, what do I want to do, what do I want to create?
• 43:32
  Erik Almas: And then someone comes to you.
• 43:33
  Erik Almas: That is, their job is to be idea comeuppance right.
• 43:37
  Erik Almas: Be idea, comeuppance, right.
• 43:46
  Erik Almas: How are we gonna take this product or this brand and how we want to tell their brand story?
• 43:48
  Erik Almas: And they come to you and say this is the ideas we have and you get to be a part of that unfolding in a really creative environment it is gratifying and for me as a location photographer, that often involves going somewhere, having that travel experience, creative experience, collaboration experience that you don't have when you're by yourself.
• 44:08
  Matt Jacob: So advertising you know it's.
• 44:13
  Erik Almas: Yeah, it's been an extraordinary thing for me and you get to create the budgets right.
• 44:17
  Erik Almas: That's out of the common.
• 44:20
  Erik Almas: So I mean I've gone to great lengths doing personal work to craft pictures that has these ideas fulfilled, but that you have advertising behind it.
• 44:31
  Erik Almas: You could get great talent, great places, access to places that you normally wouldn't, and all of that.
• 44:38
  Matt Jacob: Cool, yeah, there must be so freeing on one side of it.
• 44:44
  Matt Jacob: But also, do you get some limited creativity?
• 44:49
  Matt Jacob: I mean working for someone else.
• 44:51
  Erik Almas: Essentially, there is always a risk of having your own creativity or freedom to create stifled a little bit, but it sounds like you don't have those limitations when you're working on a advertising campaign so yes and no, but I mean, I'm lucky to be in the position where they come to me for my aesthetic and my style, so it's never a um, oh, you do this, but don't do that.
• 45:18
  Erik Almas: It's, this is our ideas, this is what we want to say, and they would love your help in doing this.
• 45:25
  Erik Almas: So, yes, it's defined by who.
• 45:28
  Erik Almas: Their demographic is right.
• 45:30
  Erik Almas: So the talent get chosen to, to hit whoever they want to market to, but within those parameters I get to create all those things we talked about.
• 45:40
  Erik Almas: Right, that resonates with me, so that I've done things differently, absolutely, at times.
• 45:47
  Erik Almas: But the innate palette, the innate feeling, the mood, what I'd like to maybe extract from the talent, all that stuff comes from me.
• 46:08
  Erik Almas: So, yeah, you can look at that box that they give you, right, you can say that, oh, I want to paint outside the box.
• 46:12
  Erik Almas: Or you could say that these limitations are extraordinary and I want to do my best work ever within these parameters.
• 46:17
  Erik Almas: So it's a little bit on how you approach it.
• 46:21
  Erik Almas: There was this one art director it was an assignment for Pfizer and he said that this is the most money Pfizer ever spent on advertising.
• 46:35
  Erik Almas: Don't fuck it up.
• 46:36
  Matt Jacob: Was it the COVID vaccine?
• 46:38
  Erik Almas: This goes further back than that, but that, I think, is stifling right.
• 46:48
  Erik Almas: It wasn't just for me to go and create.
• 46:50
  Erik Almas: I stayed very much within the boundaries of what they wanted to achieve.
• 46:56
  Erik Almas: So that's one end of the spectrum.
• 46:57
  Erik Almas: At other times I've had clients come to me with a little paragraph about what the space is, what the character is, and then let's go create within that.
• 47:09
  Erik Almas: So it has to gamut.
• 47:11
  Erik Almas: I think whenever there's an audience right that you want to please and that could be if you work for yourself building an Instagram feed that's beautiful, attracts people you try to please that or cater to that in some way.
• 47:27
  Erik Almas: So it's not any different, I think, for someone starting out trying to build an audience online than working in advertising yeah, yeah, there's always.
• 47:36
  Matt Jacob: There's always someone to to put your work out to in order to achieve something right?
• 47:44
  Matt Jacob: This was actually going to be a follow-up question from me to you about how important the end user is, whether that's your client or whether that's your family, whether that's someone seeing your prints on a wall, whoever it might be, whether that's someone seeing your prints on a wall, whoever it might be.
• 48:03
  Matt Jacob: I guess what I'm trying to ask is if no one ever saw your work again, right, if no one saw that end product, would you still make it, you know?
• 48:11
  Matt Jacob: And if so, specifically what would you go and make?
• 48:16
  Erik Almas: What would I go and make today?
• 48:17
  Erik Almas: Today, I would shoot quiet portraits or I would shoot quiet landscapes.
• 48:24
  Erik Almas: I'm working on a little.
• 48:28
  Erik Almas: I did one short film with my wife and we're working on another one, I think.
• 48:33
  Erik Almas: So I told you briefly, right, what was driving sort of the creativity?
• 48:38
  Erik Almas: Right, there's the longings for self-fit.
• 48:41
  Erik Almas: And now when I got kids myself, so like Buckethead talked about old men, that has been satisfied.
• 48:52
  Erik Almas: You know me photographing a lot of women.
• 48:59
  Erik Almas: That's been satisfied.
• 49:01
  Erik Almas: I got kids, which is extraordinary.
• 49:06
  Erik Almas: I mean their curiosity.
• 49:07
  Erik Almas: I keep thinking about what my daughters tell me, right, when they come up with this story.
• 49:12
  Erik Almas: I just think, holy shit, that would be such a beautiful picture.
• 49:15
  Erik Almas: That inspires me.
• 49:18
  Erik Almas: It's interesting because how do I say this in an elegant manner I had something to prove when I was younger.
• 49:31
  Erik Almas: So it's never just been the art, right, it's always something that underlies the art.
• 49:35
  Erik Almas: If I just wanted to take pictures, I wouldn't take pictures all the time.
• 49:41
  Erik Almas: I wouldn't take pictures with the ferocious tenacity that I had for so many years.
• 49:49
  Erik Almas: It was to prove something to myself and to others, right, that I could make it, and I think that's underlying most artists, no matter what.
• 50:01
  Erik Almas: So I guess your question was does it matter if it doesn't get seen or doesn't have an audience?
• 50:07
  Erik Almas: Not as much.
• 50:08
  Erik Almas: I think there's a human need, right In some ways, to be recognized or seen or feel not to feel important, but to feel validated and feel like you have a place.
• 50:19
  Erik Almas: That was important to me.
• 50:21
  Erik Almas: So now that you asked me these questions right where, after shooting commercial work for 25 years in a very blessed situation, to have had the career I had, what did I create?
• 50:38
  Erik Almas: It would look quite different, I think, than the work that I'm known for.
• 50:43
  Erik Almas: It would be something that's more introverted, it would be quieter, it would be seeking something else than just sort of a surface story.
• 50:57
  Erik Almas: I look at some of your work, right, when you reached out, I looked at what you're doing and I mean not that I'm going to psychoanalyze the work, but I would say that you're someone that's probably been looking for and knowing yourself through these portraits that you take, right?
• 51:20
  Erik Almas: What is it about these that I can maybe see myself in some ways?
• 51:24
  Erik Almas: So my yearning now would be a sense of quiet reflection.
• 51:30
  Erik Almas: So those would be the pictures I would take yeah, I'm with you on that that was a long answer um, no, I, I love it.
• 51:39
  Matt Jacob: It's a.
• 51:39
  Matt Jacob: It's a.
• 51:40
  Matt Jacob: You know that people, people understand that as you go through your different seasons of life, um, as you change as a person, as you evolve as a person, likely you're maybe, maybe not necessarily just your art will change, but the way you look at that and the way you approach it will change, whether that's for a commercial aspect or or not.
• 52:02
  Matt Jacob: So that totally makes sense and, um, yeah, I mean, I'm totally aligned with that, wanting some quiet, stillness, equanimity in, in, in images, um, and it's definitely a lot of that self-reflection or all the time, whether it's coming from, I think it is dangerous and this is just through personal experience, not dangerous, but you can get distracted or you can create for the wrong reasons or for reasons that may not fulfill you personally.
• 52:32
  Matt Jacob: If it is to feed your ego or to prove something right, essentially the same thing that can be, that can create some incredibly powerful stuff.
• 52:44
  Matt Jacob: But whether you will, whether it will resonate with you over a long period of time, time intimately and personally, whether that even matters, I don't know, but, um, there might be a little little disconnect, right?
• 52:57
  Erik Almas: so you, you're always going to create for different reasons throughout your life when you get to the end of that right, there's no there there, that's the famous one, right.
• 53:06
  Erik Almas: But you get there and you go.
• 53:07
  Erik Almas: Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just a journey exactly it's just a process, yeah, okay.
• 53:17
  Matt Jacob: Well, um, what?
• 53:20
  Matt Jacob: What is something that you feel that you can?
• 53:26
  Matt Jacob: I guess let me rephrase this is legacy important to you as you move forward, would maybe create now if no one was watching per se.
• 53:40
  Matt Jacob: Is you?
• 53:42
  Matt Jacob: I mean, from from the outset?
• 53:44
  Matt Jacob: You have such an incredible body of work that any photographer artist on this planet would be proud of.
• 53:50
  Matt Jacob: But is that important to you?
• 53:52
  Matt Jacob: You know what you leave behind as a, as a creator, whether you know that's when you leave something to your kids.
• 54:01
  Matt Jacob: Um, you know they're essentially your legacy.
• 54:03
  Matt Jacob: I know that.
• 54:04
  Matt Jacob: But in terms of your work, do you, do you think much about that?
• 54:07
  Matt Jacob: In terms of I want to leave behind this amazing body of work that I can be proud of forever?
• 54:15
  Erik Almas: oh, yes and no.
• 54:17
  Erik Almas: So I went through this, right.
• 54:19
  Erik Almas: You asked me when we started about this quote or this idea of me creating several different things, and at that time I had so much guilt for not.
• 54:33
  Erik Almas: I thought I owed it to my career and that.
• 54:36
  Erik Almas: Body of work, right.
• 54:37
  Erik Almas: Audio work, right.
• 54:42
  Erik Almas: So okay.
• 54:42
  Erik Almas: So now I gotta create books, right?
• 54:43
  Erik Almas: So what is my book project?
• 54:44
  Erik Almas: Where do I start?
• 54:44
  Erik Almas: Right.
• 54:44
  Erik Almas: So how do I transition into being an artist that's recognized for the artistry but not for and not for the commercial work that I did?
• 54:52
  Erik Almas: How can I either re-edit and look back, or back to and see if I could find something there that resonates, that I could build upon?
• 55:01
  Erik Almas: So there's, I was about to say, there's a book at the end of it, but I don't know if the book form is legacy, but traditionally it has.
• 55:14
  Erik Almas: So I thought about a lot of that and then I said there's so many other things I wanted to do.
• 55:19
  Erik Almas: One, being a dad, a present dad.
• 55:22
  Erik Almas: Two, building things is amazing, and just think about the way you take pictures, right, mine were very structured in the beginning Put up my frame, perfectly designed, and then figure out what the narrative was within that frame.
• 55:43
  Erik Almas: So I almost felt like I was now like a theater director, almost that this is my canvas and then let's light it to be the way that I want the light to be, and then how the people come in, or the story, whatever that was happened inside that frame.
• 56:00
  Erik Almas: This people come in, or the story, whatever that was happened inside that frame.
• 56:05
  Erik Almas: It's almost the same.
• 56:05
  Erik Almas: If you design a space but you have a three-dimensionality to it, right, what does it make you feel when you step in there?
• 56:10
  Erik Almas: Where does the light come in?
• 56:11
  Erik Almas: What is in the morning?
• 56:13
  Erik Almas: What is in the afternoon?
• 56:14
  Erik Almas: It's almost the same exploratory as when you craft a picture.
• 56:17
  Erik Almas: It's a little different with portraiture, when the interaction is with that human, so that energy between you.
• 56:24
  Erik Almas: But the way I started with being very structural, I think that has evolved with filming and all.
• 56:34
  Erik Almas: I think I've gotten better because of it.
• 56:35
  Erik Almas: But the foundation of my I'm going to create this frame is very similar when I create spaces, anyhow.
• 56:45
  Erik Almas: So that's a long answer.
• 56:46
  Erik Almas: I guess there's no.
• 56:47
  Erik Almas: Have we talked a little bit before we started, right?
• 56:51
  Erik Almas: That I had some medical complications and when I limped through that there was not one thought about my work.
• 57:01
  Erik Almas: Oh, my gosh, I gotta hurry up and finish a book.
• 57:04
  Erik Almas: Oh, I gotta hurry up and take more pictures.
• 57:06
  Erik Almas: No, I gotta slow down to be with my family.
• 57:09
  Erik Almas: I gotta slow down to absorb every bit of it.
• 57:14
  Erik Almas: I'm gonna have my shoot experiences, which I realized that I truly love for the reasons we talked about the collaboration, the creating something with other people.
• 57:32
  Erik Almas: So I would love to continue that if the advertising business will have me, not if the advertising business will have me.
• 57:39
  Erik Almas: But my yearnings are not as in, I got to create more to leave a legacy.
• 57:49
  Erik Almas: I want to be more present and almost create less in the format, not that I want to stop creating, but I don't think about photography as legacy.
• 58:01
  Erik Almas: Is that?
• 58:06
  Matt Jacob: a letdown no no, it's refreshing.
• 58:10
  Matt Jacob: I think it's very easy for people, including myself, at times take the craft or themselves too seriously right.
• 58:21
  Matt Jacob: At the end of the day, none of this matters.
• 58:23
  Matt Jacob: It's something that we have to find.
• 58:26
  Matt Jacob: I think it's a vehicle that we can find, an element of purpose, an element of belonging, an element of fulfillment.
• 58:33
  Matt Jacob: But at the end of the day, it's just another thing.
• 58:36
  Matt Jacob: In a hundred years, no one's going to remember us.
• 58:38
  Matt Jacob: No one's going to know.
• 58:39
  Matt Jacob: In 100 years, no one's gonna remember us.
• 58:41
  Matt Jacob: I was gonna know who we were right.
• 58:43
  Erik Almas: I mean it's seemingly simplified right to give that answer, but I was chasing photography and being successful from 22 to 42 really right after 40.
• 59:00
  Erik Almas: And then I was like I've gotten to a great place.
• 59:07
  Erik Almas: I had a great 40th birthday with some extraordinary friends around and my family and I came out of that thinking what I'm missing is family, right?
• 59:17
  Erik Almas: So I don't want people to think oh, oh, this guy doesn't think about his work and career.
• 59:23
  Erik Almas: I mean, that's been my.
• 59:24
  Erik Almas: That was 25 years of my life pursuing it, not just me, but been a studio manager and a full-time assistant and the sole focus was to make eric almost crack this, this nut right of being a successful photographer.
• 59:39
  Erik Almas: But as I've gotten older, gotten family and the situation I'm in, I can reflect on that and say it's not just photography, it's so much more to it yeah, it's a way of life but it's different periods though.
• 59:57
  Erik Almas: I mean, if a young photographer is listening to this, I'd say, go chase it with all you got.
• 1:00:01
  Erik Almas: I mean, if you love it, yeah, and it fills your bucket and your heart, like it did for me when I was young.
• 1:00:09
  Erik Almas: So you got to chase that with everything you got when you're young, all of it and then you're going to get to a place where, holy fuck, I'm burnt out, I'm working too much, and then you're going to reflect back on it and say, okay, okay, what else is there to life?
• 1:00:20
  Erik Almas: And you know, that's what I did.
• 1:00:22
  Erik Almas: It's like I want a family, I want to slow down, I want to have this other life experience.
• 1:00:28
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, I totally agree with you.
• 1:00:30
  Matt Jacob: Everyone has their seasons in life, and certainly in that period between 20 and 40, I guess, before you hit your inevitable midlife crisis, uh, you know, you gotta, um, you gotta go chase what you want to chase, as long as it's true to you right and you're not doing it for some someone else and you're not being fake and uh kind of.
• 1:00:52
  Matt Jacob: You have to go through those things to really understand yourself and what you do want.
• 1:00:56
  Matt Jacob: But, yeah, I don't want to, I don't want to feel down, you know, put any downs on people either.
• 1:01:02
  Matt Jacob: It's a it's such a fulfilling thing to do and there's so many ways to do it Right and there's so many ways to put your own personal stamp on things and make it your own and make a business out of it.
• 1:01:13
  Matt Jacob: So it's extremely exciting in that respect.
• 1:01:16
  Matt Jacob: But, um, yeah, life can sometimes hit you, um, and then you have to kind of pivot.
• 1:01:23
  Erik Almas: I think the one advice I would give to kids right Kids, young photographers especially with AI coming in is that they have to be extraordinarily authentic.
• 1:01:34
  Erik Almas: So they got to find that thing that makes them sing, otherwise there's going to be such a sea of pictures that it's going to be very hard to stand out in.
• 1:01:45
  Erik Almas: So we have to just get more raw and more emotional and more true to ourselves as AI comes into the picture.
• 1:01:54
  Matt Jacob: Well, we didn't even touch on your motion picture stuff, your short films and other, you know, education stuff, how?
• 1:02:05
  Erik Almas: did you touch on some of it?
• 1:02:07
  Matt Jacob: even like, yeah, we, we could be here for hours and hours.
• 1:02:11
  Matt Jacob: But, um, you know, I think for me and for the audience, we we respect and love your photography so much as well as everything else.
• 1:02:19
  Matt Jacob: But you know, we know eric, know Eric as a photographer and you know even little things like the cinemagraphs I think I saw on your website which I hadn't really seen before, and there's so much uniqueness to what you put out there in your voice and your style.
• 1:02:36
  Matt Jacob: It's so refreshing and so inspirational.
• 1:02:39
  Matt Jacob: So, look, I hope to do this again, where we can maybe dive into all of these other areas and other skill sets that are prevalent to you in your work.
• 1:02:50
  Matt Jacob: But until then, thank you so much for taking the time and being present with me, and I've really enjoyed the conversation.
• 1:02:59
  Erik Almas: Like what's bad.
• 1:02:59
  Erik Almas: I listened to a lot of your podcasts coming into this and you're very, really soulful into your, so thank you for making me feel comfortable in the conversation and the next one that we do in person, I'd love to help you out to California.
• 1:03:13
  Matt Jacob: If you can give me some wine.
• 1:03:14
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, if we can, we can do maybe a wine tour as we're talking.
• 1:03:19
  Erik Almas: I am there, I'll get on you know, I have a tiny patch of vineyard right there and, uh, it's not a lot that we make sort of one barrel of wine every year.
• 1:03:31
  Erik Almas: So you know, come pick some grapes.
• 1:03:34
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, it's fun that's an art in itself isn, isn't it?
• 1:03:38
  Matt Jacob: We could talk about that for ages.
• 1:03:41
  Matt Jacob: I love that process.
• 1:03:43
  Matt Jacob: I've turned my passion you know, I was always passionate about wine, learned a lot about it, did so much wine tasting and, you know, wasted not wasted but drunk a lot of money in the process.
• 1:03:58
  Matt Jacob: And at the same time, I was doing the same thing with coffee.
• 1:04:03
  Matt Jacob: And when I moved here to Bali, there is no wine here, really, because it's so expensive to import and there's no old world wine.
• 1:04:14
  Matt Jacob: It's just too expensive, there isn't a market for it.
• 1:04:17
  Matt Jacob: So I kind of doubled down my passion into coffee and it's a very, very, very similar, you know, agricultural and manufactured manufacturing process, in the way it's this drink that we consume daily, whether it's wine or coffee, uh is made and, um, you know, I just love all of that.
• 1:04:36
  Matt Jacob: I love the art behind it.
• 1:04:38
  Matt Jacob: These, these people, these these uh, what do you call them?
• 1:04:43
  Matt Jacob: These, um, what do you call it?
• 1:04:46
  Matt Jacob: A wine person?
• 1:04:48
  Matt Jacob: A Vin, vin, vignette.
• 1:04:50
  Erik Almas: A Vintner yeah.
• 1:04:53
  Matt Jacob: Vintner.
• 1:04:53
  Matt Jacob: That's what I was looking for.
• 1:04:54
  Matt Jacob: These Vintners are true artists.
• 1:04:57
  Matt Jacob: Um.
• 1:04:58
  Matt Jacob: So yeah, the whole the whole process absolutely fascinates me, and, of course, I love drinking as well.
• 1:05:01
  Matt Jacob: So yeah, the whole process absolutely fascinates me and of course, I love drinking as well.
• 1:05:03
  Matt Jacob: So maybe next time we can combine both passions.
• 1:05:08
  Erik Almas: That'd be so fun.
• 1:05:09
  Matt Jacob: That'd be great fun.
• 1:05:10
  Matt Jacob: Until then, thank you so much, eric.
• 1:05:12
  Matt Jacob: Such a pleasure, such a privilege.
• 1:05:14
  Matt Jacob: Really appreciate it.
• 1:05:14
  Matt Jacob: Take good care of yourself.
• 1:05:15
  Matt Jacob: You too, thank you.