Latest / The MOOD Podcast / “25 Years With National Geographic” Joe McNally on What Photography Lost (And What It Gained) - E110

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“25 Years With National Geographic” Joe McNally on What Photography Lost (And What It Gained) - E110 · The MOOD Podcast

• 0:00
  Joe: I firmly believe once you see a truly great photograph, you are changed forever.
• 0:04
  Joe: Think of the camera as a visa.
• 0:06
  Joe: It allows you to cross boundaries.
• 0:08
  Joe: People let you into their lives.
• 0:09
  Joe: And that's a great privilege to have.
• 0:11
  Joe: It's also a tremendous responsibility to do this honorably.
• 0:15
  Matt: Over a few decades of using a camera, how's your outlook change with photography specifically?
• 0:21
  Joe: I shot a cover in National Geographic or life, it would stay on the stands.
• 0:25
  Joe: People would talk about it.
• 0:27
  Joe: It would be out there for a month.
• 0:28
  Joe: Yeah, even if you shoot a major campaign, oftentimes it's gone in a blink.
• 0:33
  Matt: You must see some jobs and opportunities disappearing.
• 0:37
  Joe: Reams of work that probably should have gone to a professional photographer are now being done by someone in-house with an iPhone.
• 0:44
  Joe: Rates and rights have shrunk to a degree.
• 0:47
  Matt: What do you think the future holds, and where do you think the advantages are for newcomers these days that maybe you didn't have or your generation didn't when you were starting it?
• 0:56
  Joe: At the end of the day, all photographers need to do is Joe McNally.
• 1:10
  Matt: Welcome to the Moo Podcast.
• 1:12
  Matt: Thank you for joining me.
• 1:13
  Matt: Well, thanks for the invitation.
• 1:15
  Matt: We're talking across separate worlds here.
• 1:19
  Matt: We are.
• 1:19
  Matt: I kind of getting used to it a little bit to kind of coordinate everything with these time zones.
• 1:25
  Matt: But uh yeah, I really appreciate you speaking to me at the end of uh what uh appears to be have been a busy day for you.
• 1:32
  Matt: So um welcome.
• 1:34
  Matt: And uh I thought that the best way to start things off.
• 1:37
  Matt: Uh I'm sure many people watching and listening know who you are.
• 1:41
  Matt: Uh, but for those that don't, give us a kind of 30,000-foot overview of uh who you are as a person and as a professional, what you do, what you've done, um, what you're about to do, but more importantly, uh why you do it.
• 1:56
  Joe: Sure.
• 1:57
  Joe: Um well, you know, um, I'm sort of an accidental photographer in in a certain way.
• 2:04
  Joe: I went to school to be a writer, and I was literally forced to take a photo class.
• 2:10
  Joe: It was a requirement, you know, uh in the journalism curriculum.
• 2:14
  Joe: And I took a camera in my hands and I knew immediately.
• 2:17
  Joe: It was just one of those things.
• 2:19
  Joe: I I looked at this camera and I started making some photographs, not very good ones at all, but I thought, hmm, I can really work this.
• 2:27
  Joe: And uh it also struck me as the type of thing that will keep me out of an office, which it has by and large, for the last 40 plus years, because I'm no good in an office.
• 2:39
  Joe: And and there I was.
• 2:41
  Joe: I was uh I started this journey, if you want to call it that, a long time ago.
• 2:46
  Joe: I became uh got involved in newspapers, you know, newspapers and wire services in an early part of my career.
• 2:53
  Joe: In the very early 80s, I flipped over to color and and started freelancing for magazines.
• 3:00
  Joe: Uh, shot my first job for life in '84, I think it was, 83, 84.
• 3:06
  Joe: Started working for the geographic in the late 80s, shot for 25 years for the National Geographic.
• 3:13
  Joe: And uh I'm still in love with the sound of the shutter, even though now we have technology to make the shutter silent.
• 3:20
  Joe: I still enjoy my time behind a camera.
• 3:23
  Joe: I still love the engagement of it and the window on the world that carrying a camera gives you.
• 3:29
  Joe: You know, I've always described a camera to, you know, anyone who might be, you know, at a talk or something like that, or especially young photographers occasionally when I when I speak with them, I tell them to think of the camera as a visa.
• 3:45
  Joe: It's uh it allows you to cross boundaries, and those can be physical, you know, geopolitical boundaries, or they more importantly can be emotional boundaries.
• 3:55
  Joe: People let you into their lives.
• 3:57
  Joe: And that's a great privilege to have uh as a photographer.
• 4:01
  Joe: It's also a tremendous responsibility to do this honorably.
• 4:04
  Matt: Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
• 4:06
  Matt: It's certainly a conjure into um people's lives as well as your own.
• 4:10
  Matt: I think it it can often be a mirror into what you care about and what you're interested in as well.
• 4:15
  Matt: And I'm interested to hear how that has evolved, I guess, or shaped you as a person as much as anything else for doing it so long and seeing the uh constriction of the industry or or arguably expansion of the industry, depending on how you look at it.
• 4:32
  Matt: But over a few decades of using a camera, how have how have how has your outlook changed with photography specifically?
• 4:41
  Matt: But how has it allowed you to also express yourself more as a as a person using that camera?
• 4:49
  Joe: Sure.
• 4:50
  Joe: Um, you know, I mean in terms of expressing myself, I I am very grateful to have found photography because I have an active imagination.
• 5:01
  Joe: And I think, you know, if I didn't have photography as an outlet to express that imagination and also combining that with an essential sense of curiosity, I really enjoy people, I enjoy um seeing how things work.
• 5:17
  Joe: I enjoy getting behind the scenes.
• 5:20
  Joe: Uh what I've had a long history of photographing, for instance, performers of all kinds, dancers, um, actors, musicians, etc.
• 5:28
  Joe: And I'm always curious uh about their off-stage life.
• 5:34
  Joe: You know, I've I worked for Sports Illustrated for many years, and uh I honestly, you know, I couldn't care less who wins the game.
• 5:42
  Joe: I'm far more interested in the obsession that is behind excellence in sports that drive to get that extra tenth of a second.
• 5:51
  Joe: Who is that person?
• 5:52
  Joe: And so photography allows me to satisfy um a very powerful, you know, sense of curiosity.
• 5:59
  Joe: And in terms of change, you you mentioned two words simultaneously that are both very true uh constriction and expansion.
• 6:08
  Joe: Uh the digital age has ushered in an amazing array of technology that allows a single lone photographer to do very expansive things.
• 6:21
  Joe: You know, I I have been used to over the years working, you know, in the film era, say for Sports Illustrated, to to light an arena, you know, and we go out with you know 15, 20 cases of gear and light the whole place.
• 6:38
  Joe: Massive amount of work.
• 6:40
  Joe: Now it was, you know, I at the last Olympics, you know, I shot at uh in Tokyo, you know, I'm routinely shooting at ISOs of 5,000, 6,000, 8,000, which were not numbers that were ever available to us uh when I first started this.
• 6:56
  Joe: So there's been tremendous expansion on that level.
• 6:59
  Joe: There's also been constriction in the sense of um loss of outlets, even though people might say, oh, wow, there's plenty of outlets.
• 7:09
  Joe: Yes, but not those outlets that uh sustained many photographers for many years.
• 7:15
  Joe: Like the magazine industry has plummeted.
• 7:18
  Joe: Um the online industry has grown exponentially, but there is also the the quickness of those uh those outlets.
• 7:28
  Joe: The I don't know, this is probably the wrong way to put it, but the lack of durability, the lack of sustaining presence for a photographer.
• 7:37
  Joe: When I shot a cover in National Geographic or life, it would stay on the stands, you know, it people would talk about it.
• 7:44
  Joe: It would be out there for a month, you know, and people in within the industry would talk about it.
• 7:49
  Joe: Now, even if you shoot a major campaign, oftentimes it's gone in a blick.
• 7:53
  Joe: So that uh that you know kind of of anchor that we had for many years is um pretty much gone.
• 8:03
  Joe: So you have to jump in and start swimming pretty rapidly to stick with this business.
• 8:09
  Matt: If you're enjoying this conversation and if you're drawn to this kind of slow reflective discussions we have on this podcast, then I want to let you know about my free closed community book club, which might be something that you genuinely find value in.
• 8:24
  Matt: The Voice Alchemy Book Club is uh kind of an extension of these types of conversations.
• 8:31
  Matt: Each month we focus on one of three types of work a book, a photo book, or a photo critique, and we meet online to sit with it properly, asking ourselves what it's meant to one another, what we can maybe learn from it, what ideas and actions we can take from it, what it's wrestling with, and what it asks of us as viewers and creators are.
• 8:54
  Matt: It's a space for deeper introspection, long-form thinking, and really honest discussions around photography, creativity, and authorship.
• 9:05
  Matt: There's no pressure to perform at all, no chasing trends, no algorithms, no need to have everything figured out, just honest, authentic connection with fellow like-minded creators, careful, collaborative looking, thoughtful and meaningful conversation, and a community of people who care about staying with the work long enough for it to mean something.
• 9:28
  Matt: So if this episode and this podcast generally resonates with you, which I hope it does, the book club is a natural place to continue that way of thinking and actually participate for free with others that will be open and welcoming to you and your ideas.
• 9:46
  Matt: You'll find more details via the link in the show notes, and I really hope to see you there.
• 9:52
  Matt: It must be difficult to not be nostalgic about those uh glory days.
• 9:59
  Matt: Uh maybe they are glory days, maybe they're not for me.
• 10:02
  Matt: Uh, who's only been shooting for you know a decade and a half, maybe.
• 10:06
  Matt: It it I kind of look back at those and think they there were some beautiful times for the photography industry, uh, extremely competitive on a commercial level, uh I think, but those um, like you said, those uh those almost timeless moments and those the the the amount of time people sit with photos, the amount of respect people had for image making and curation and and publishing and magazine making.
• 10:37
  Matt: Do you do you look back at those days and wish they were the same, or are you really embracing the the these digitized worlds and the way that photography is moving forward?
• 10:50
  Joe: I would say it's the latter.
• 10:51
  Joe: I I really embrace what I do now.
• 10:53
  Joe: I'm probably having more fun as a photographer now than I have had over the years, even though I can look back at those times and be very grateful that I lived through them.
• 11:04
  Joe: You know, the the name and the power of the National Geographic was outstanding.
• 11:09
  Joe: Uh, it could open amazing doors for you to walk through as a photographer.
• 11:14
  Joe: So I don't I don't regret that time.
• 11:16
  Joe: And on a certain level, yes, you'd you'd have to miss that, uh, those opportunities to a degree.
• 11:23
  Joe: But at the same time, uh I have such a wonderful opportunity now to pursue stories that I want to pursue, make proposals.
• 11:32
  Joe: I have, you know, uh, you know, my own website, et cetera.
• 11:36
  Joe: I have uh uh uh certain outlets to the community, Instagram, et cetera, which is you know, people say, oh, you know, it's you can flip through Instagram very quickly, but it's a place where I can publish and I can try things and uh offer up uh ideas and projects, etc., that at this point I can be somewhat selective about.
• 12:00
  Joe: So yeah, I mean, those those days were heady days indeed, but also at the same time, you know, um man, uh you would go out there from the National Geographic for $500 a day and you would literally kill yourself.
• 12:16
  Joe: There was there was so much grinding effort involved in those stories.
• 12:22
  Joe: The stories would stay with you for months and months and months, and it was a pathway to good work, as as Bill Allard, who's a colleague at the Geographic, often said, you you cannot be indifferent and do superior work.
• 12:38
  Joe: So when you would get a story for the geographic, it would stick with you, it would, you know, go into the shower with you, it would be in the windshield as you were driving, thinking about it, ruminating about it.
• 12:50
  Joe: And that was a process, but it was also a grind.
• 12:54
  Joe: And now when I when I shoot, uh I I can free myself up.
• 12:59
  Joe: I still do commercial work.
• 13:00
  Joe: I still travel a great deal.
• 13:02
  Joe: I'm probably traveling more now over the last five years than I did in magazine days.
• 13:08
  Matt: Still editorial work or is it more um, you know, personal projects?
• 13:14
  Joe: It's more marketing and commercial work.
• 13:16
  Joe: I I seem to I do I do have some legacy clients who still look out and come after me to go, hey, we need you to go do this.
• 13:25
  Joe: Uh I still shoot for uh Nikon.
• 13:27
  Joe: I've been a Nikon photographer since the beginning of my career.
• 13:31
  Joe: And I was one of their first, what they call ambassadors.
• 13:35
  Joe: And so last year alone, I I introduced uh the 35mm f/1.2 and the 2470 f/28, the new adaptations.
• 13:44
  Joe: Okay.
• 13:45
  Joe: That was and and I and they give me no real agenda.
• 13:49
  Joe: Do what do something creative.
• 13:51
  Joe: Like here's a trust from the creator, you know.
• 13:54
  Joe: I mean, it's uh it's like, okay, I hear that right.
• 13:58
  Joe: There's not, I'm not gonna have an art director out here with me.
• 14:02
  Joe: Uh so they can't afford it, right?
• 14:04
  Joe: Well, they you know, the the the beautiful thing about being left sort of alone in the playground is that you create what you uh what you feel like doing, and they're invariably pleased with it.
• 14:17
  Joe: So that means I'm a happy camper at that point.
• 14:21
  Matt: But you've you've earned that trust and that freedom through you know your legacy clients as well as your reputation and and uh you know, huge, huge incredible body of work.
• 14:32
  Matt: So I mean, uh for you, for someone like Joe McNally, who's kind of at the frontier of the still the commercial work out there these days, the education um platforms and portals and outlets, as well as everything else, social media.
• 14:48
  Matt: How have you observed the opportunities and the uh that kind of constriction that we're talking about with the industry, certainly with the commercial side of things, because you know, we talk about what you've just been doing and and the commercial jobs that you currently do and and travel and you say you're you're almost busier than ever.
• 15:09
  Matt: Have you also seen that because I I just think well AI must be entering, I don't want to dive into AI too much.
• 15:18
  Matt: I think it's just talked about so much at the moment, the photography industry, and none of us really know how it's going to affect.
• 15:24
  Matt: I think uh I I I have a significant belief of of how it's going to affect photography specifically as well as society, but you must see some jobs and opportunities disappearing, or at least uh you know, really getting sapped up by you know the much cheaper options of uh AI generated images.
• 15:48
  Matt: Is this me just imagining things, or is it do you can you you see that and observe that uh in your job?
• 15:53
  Joe: Sure.
• 15:53
  Joe: Yeah, no, you speak the truth there for sure.
• 15:55
  Joe: There are things that, you know, reams of work that probably should have gone to a professional photographer are now being done by someone in-house with an iPhone.
• 16:06
  Joe: Uh you know, depending on the objectives of the job, to be sure that has constricted the market and uh also, again, not probably the completely right word, but cheapened the market in the sense of uh rates and and rights have have um shrunk to a degree.
• 16:27
  Joe: There's no two ways about that.
• 16:29
  Joe: And I haven't been affected by AI, you know, uh at this point in time.
• 16:35
  Joe: Uh I, you know, I'm not naive enough to know that I'm or to claim that oh, I'm not using AI.
• 16:42
  Joe: Of course I'm using AI.
• 16:43
  Joe: There's algorithms in my cameras that are driven by AI, face recognition, eye recognition.
• 16:50
  Joe: Those kinds of things are are the positive uh side of the coin.
• 16:55
  Joe: And what could be a negative side of the coin is the is the fraying away of the veracity of the image.
• 17:02
  Joe: And actually, one of the what an image I made last year for um the 35 campaign uh for Nikon, there was the tiniest bit of pushback a little on Facebook, for instance.
• 17:16
  Joe: You put your stuff out, you know.
• 17:18
  Joe: Oh man, he must be using AI.
• 17:20
  Joe: Like, no, no.
• 17:23
  Joe: What you're seeing is is what comes out of the camera.
• 17:26
  Joe: Post-production is applied, it's a commercial job, skin work, you know, on the model or something like that.
• 17:33
  Joe: But nothing that changed or altered the simple fact of the image, the raw image that came out of the camera.
• 17:41
  Joe: So that saddens me a little bit that people will look at a picture and think, oh, you know, um, sort of doubt the original root of it.
• 17:52
  Joe: That kind of stinks, you know.
• 17:54
  Joe: And invariably AI will be put to money-saving enterprises, uh, maybe even nefarious enterprises.
• 18:02
  Joe: We see it in the political conversation here in the United States.
• 18:05
  Joe: There's so much back and forth about information versus misinformation.
• 18:10
  Joe: Um we have uh uh a president who is using artificial imagery to promote his uh agenda.
• 18:19
  Joe: You know, we have not seen these things before.
• 18:23
  Joe: They are not necessarily good things, to be sure.
• 18:27
  Joe: So I think it's time for people of to put a spin on a phrase, is people of goodwill to man their cameras and and shoot them in a very real and telling way.
• 18:38
  Joe: And there's still plenty of photographers out there who are doing that.
• 18:41
  Matt: Yeah, and it's it's it's uh it's nice to observe it's not nice to observe, like you said, the nefarious uses and the the restriction or the kind of diminishing of opportunities for those commercial photographers, but it is nice to see people connect with the process more and really want more authenticity and and actually get fed up with AI imagery, AI videos, AI chats, AI bots.
• 19:12
  Matt: People people really enjoy that connection.
• 19:15
  Matt: And when it comes to photography, I definitely see people I mean, the camera business is still absolutely booming in terms of the the manufacturing and the the consumerism of of cameras and lenses.
• 19:27
  Matt: You'd think they had made all the lenses and cameras that there were ever to be made.
• 19:32
  Matt: Uh, but you know, we love buying them, we love using them, and we love the process of taking an image, um, for which you are incredible at.
• 19:41
  Matt: Tell me um tell me about your process.
• 19:45
  Matt: I know this is that's really a wide question, but you have a very distinct style, and I'm interested to where that style came from, especially the use of flash and and lighting, and as you've evolved over the years, and back in your early days, I imagine uh maybe putting words in your mouth here, but you know, your accolades and your experience with some huge organizations, and you mentioned some already, like National Geographic and Life, as well as many winning multiple awards and doing so much in the photography world.
• 20:17
  Matt: Did those early days and and those environments kind of shaped your style and how you wanted to be as a photographer, or did you already have that kind of embedded in your in your psyche?
• 20:32
  Joe: Good question.
• 20:33
  Joe: And it it touches on something we you know briefly mentioned earlier, just about your makeup as a photographer, you know, and I've always described photographers as a mosaic of all of their influences when they they put their eye into the camera where we are influenced by the way we look at the world, um, the upbringing we had, perhaps.
• 20:56
  Joe: I mean, I I went to five different grammar schools, and my dad changed jobs a lot.
• 21:03
  Joe: And I didn't realize it then, but it was sort of preparing me to be a photographer because I was always the new kid, you know, and as a photographer, you're oftentimes the new kid.
• 21:12
  Joe: You're dropped into a situation where you don't really know the parameters or the people.
• 21:17
  Joe: So uh I I kind of lost myself in uh adventure novels.
• 21:23
  Joe: I read a lot as a kid, you know, and comic books, legends and lore and fantasy and Lord of the Rings and uh, you know, uh, you know, Spider-Man and all of that stuff.
• 21:33
  Joe: And I I look at it now and I I can see that influence in my work.
• 21:38
  Joe: You know, I have a fairly strong uh color palette, you know, a lot of uh perhaps hero point of view kinds of things.
• 21:45
  Joe: I walk with, uh I work with athletes, you know, you make them loom larger than life.
• 21:50
  Joe: And and also not to be neglected, comic books are a very good storytelling device.
• 21:56
  Joe: They move you through pages with punch and impact and That is something at the end of the day, all photographers need to do is tell good stories, connect the dots, and keep the viewer or the reader involved.
• 22:10
  Joe: So I think life experience of the way you were you were brought up and came along in this world is is um a very powerful influence at the camera.
• 22:20
  Joe: And also your sympathy for other human beings, you know, and the human condition.
• 22:26
  Joe: And to look at things and again be curious about them, be sympathetic to them, and get involved as of a time before.
• 22:35
  Matt: Yeah, I think empathy is is an underrated skill that one has to really learn by doing and learn by by failing a lot of time, especially if you're shooting people, of course.
• 22:46
  Matt: Um, speaking of failure, and you mentioned it earlier, and and I wanted to touch upon it because I don't know if what I read was true or not uh in doing a little bit of research uh on you.
• 22:57
  Matt: But was there a story about an Olympic torch moment with with you um photographing Olympic torch, or was that something that I completely misunderstood?
• 23:09
  Joe: No, um not not so much me in an Olympic torch.
• 23:13
  Joe: I I did mention at one point there he's passed on now, but uh I used it as an example when I was talking um to a group um about the legend really of Heinz Klupmeier, who was an astonishing sports photographer at um Sports Illustrated for many years and the lengths he would go when uh in the 84 Olympics, when uh the torch came up the steps, it was a backlit situation, and he was not allowed to be there.
• 23:45
  Joe: But he figured out what seat would have the best optimum view, and he found out somehow who was seated in that seat because it was a VIP seating area, found that person, preset a camera to the specs of backlight, gave that camera to a person sitting there, and they made the picture and no one else had it.
• 24:10
  Joe: Uh, and that, you know, just a remarkable example of the tenacity you have to bring uh to the party.
• 24:18
  Joe: And that is also uh an issue that doesn't get talked about all that often, Matt, is just sheer out and out tenacity and the willingness to accept failure.
• 24:27
  Joe: You know, you you mentioned accolades before, and yes, I I've had my share, but I I the last thing as a photographer you can ever do is believe your own press notices.
• 24:37
  Joe: You have to keep your feet on the ground because you can win an award.
• 24:42
  Joe: And I've always described awards as as um massages, you know, they feel good, but they're temporary.
• 24:50
  Joe: You have to you have to go out the next day, pick up the camera, and go find a new job and do another picture, or hopefully, you know, do a better picture than you did the day before.
• 25:02
  Joe: This is an ongoing process of striving to get better and accepting routinely, really, a high level of failure as you're trying to endeavor at this and be tolerant of that and forgiving of it, you know, and you and yourself like, okay, all right, I I will do better, I will learn from this, I will go forward.
• 25:25
  Joe: It it can be a very daunting process if you let it, but there's also redemption at the end of it, and that you know, you you will find a good photograph if you stick with this.
• 25:36
  Matt: Have you ever been disheartened?
• 25:38
  Matt: I mean, disheartened, yes, I'm sure, but really lost through failures uh, or at least demotivated?
• 25:46
  Matt: What parts of your photographic career have you just kind of not given up?
• 25:53
  Matt: But I I'm sure we've all been through it where failure becomes a little bit of a habit until you get that one image that kind of re-sparks your curiosity and and motivation.
• 26:04
  Matt: Has that been a theme for you, or have you just been completely tenacious with failure in itself and and really picking yourself up by your bootstraps every time and uh you know going forward into the next learning experience?
• 26:19
  Joe: It's a good question.
• 26:20
  Joe: Um, I I I'd like to think that I've come down on the side of being tenacious and just brushing myself off and going forward, partially out of fear of Matt, you know, because this is the only thing I really know how to do.
• 26:36
  Joe: Yeah.
• 26:36
  Joe: And so, you know, if if I gave it up, then what the hell else am I gonna do?
• 26:42
  Joe: But yes, I've certainly been in trust, you know, uh, as every photographer has.
• 26:48
  Joe: I used to teach at the Eddie Adams workshop, and that was always a wonderful event.
• 26:54
  Joe: And I was a teen leader there for 14 years.
• 26:58
  Joe: And every year they'd asked the team leaders to start off the workshop by bringing up images that they were fond of or you know, felt were important in their career.
• 27:09
  Joe: And I always tried to use that as a barometer, and I would only choose images.
• 27:14
  Joe: Uh you would have to show 10.
• 27:16
  Joe: And I would only choose images I had shot that previous year because I didn't want to go back into like my hieroglyphics, you know, and oh, I shot this, you know, 15 years ago.
• 27:28
  Joe: And I tried to keep it current, and there were years where I would look and say, I don't have 10 good pictures from this year.
• 27:37
  Joe: You know, I didn't have I did not have a good year.
• 27:40
  Joe: And that would always be like a little bit of a slap in the face, you know, like, oh, you know, I gotta, I gotta pick up my game here and see what else I can do.
• 27:51
  Matt: Yeah, I I I know that feeling.
• 27:54
  Matt: Um when did that turn into education?
• 27:59
  Matt: I guess you you're you're known probably as much for your you know, live workshops, stage presence, your education uh platforms.
• 28:07
  Matt: When did this come about in terms of uh realizing that this was something that you really enjoyed and that you could do and obviously monetize uh timing it really well with what we've already what we've already talked about, how photography's gone over the last few decades?
• 28:24
  Matt: Tell us about the education side of photography because you talk you talk so well.
• 28:29
  Matt: I mean, even on on the the half an hour that we've been talking, you talk so well with advice and sharing experiences and being able to distill it down into something that us laymen can understand uh a little bit better.
• 28:42
  Matt: So where did this gnat come from?
• 28:43
  Matt: Where did where did this interest, curiosity with the education side of things and giving back, I guess, come from?
• 28:50
  Joe: Again, a little bit of an axe accident.
• 28:52
  Joe: And you know, I I don't want to present myself as someone who's, you know, just kind of like fell in the right direction over the last 40 years, but you know, I I entered this, I I didn't really have a plan, you know.
• 29:07
  Joe: Uh I was I was minted.
• 29:09
  Joe: I came out of Syracuse University's New House School of Journalism, and I was minted as a newspaper photographer.
• 29:17
  Joe: This was in the 70s, and that was a very viable thing, like bang, you know, now you're a newspaper photographer, and you could go get a job at a newspaper.
• 29:24
  Joe: That wasn't a viable thing to do.
• 29:27
  Joe: So yeah, I mean, I didn't think looking back when I started my career, I didn't ever think I would be, you know, what they refer to now as a brand, you know, and that you know have this name and uh, etc.
• 29:42
  Joe: That was never even crossed my mind.
• 29:45
  Joe: And I was asked in the 90s, uh, the late 90s, actually, to um replace Bill Allard.
• 29:54
  Joe: There's that name again.
• 29:55
  Joe: Uh Bill is a legend, by the way.
• 29:57
  Joe: He's just an astonishing photographer.
• 29:59
  Joe: And he was teaching at the main photographic workshops, and he had a dropout.
• 30:03
  Joe: And they called me up and said, We'd like you to replace Bill Allard.
• 30:07
  Joe: And I looked at them and I said, I ain't no Bill Allard.
• 30:11
  Joe: You know, are you crazy?
• 30:13
  Joe: And they said, No, you're gonna be all right.
• 30:15
  Joe: You you'll be able to handle it.
• 30:17
  Joe: And I went up and I gave it a crack and I found that I enjoyed it.
• 30:21
  Joe: I enjoyed the company of photographers.
• 30:23
  Joe: We we share a lot of the same strengths and weaknesses, anxieties, you know, you know, ups and downs.
• 30:29
  Joe: And I found that talking candidly about it, uh I found a receptive audience for that kind of discussion.
• 30:38
  Joe: And it also fueled me, it made me a better photographer because people will ask you questions or challenge you, and you have to kind of dig deep and find that answer or uh respond on some level that makes you self-examine, you know.
• 30:54
  Joe: So I found out I enjoyed it and I uh, you know, could carry a conversation or a lecture or or something like that.
• 31:05
  Joe: And that became actually in terms of the public face of our studio, the education component is very prominent because we to fill workshops, you have to tell people about them.
• 31:18
  Joe: And so we're we are out on the internet and we're we we just lost uh uh uh an educational uh website, you know, here it's called Brace Yourself, it's called Better Pictures with Joe.
• 31:32
  Joe: And then uh uh it's been, you know, really kind of um heartening.
• 31:39
  Joe: You know, it's a small community, but it's growing, and people are passionate and I'm communicating with them, you know.
• 31:45
  Joe: You know, Matt, I wrote a blog for many years, and I stopped doing it because I kind of got to the point where I felt like I was just writing this thing and throwing it down a well.
• 31:55
  Joe: I didn't know who was reading it or if anyone was reading it.
• 32:00
  Joe: So now I'm find myself jazzed about writing again because I'm writing to an audience that really is interested and is really responsive.
• 32:09
  Joe: So that has uh been a really powerful thing that has come about just in the last few months here at the studio.
• 32:16
  Joe: And it also drives forward from the fact that um photographic information is pretty useless unless you pass it on.
• 32:26
  Joe: I mean, why you know some folks out there and photographers think like there's massive secrets to this.
• 32:32
  Joe: There isn't.
• 32:33
  Joe: It's hard work and it's it's sustaining, you know, in in good times and bad, and being really dedicated, emotionally committed to the idea of making pictures because they're so goddamn important.
• 32:47
  Joe: And you uh you take up that mantle and you carry it forward.
• 32:53
  Joe: And why not share it?
• 32:55
  Joe: You know, especially now at my at my stage of things, you know, that I've had a lot of experience under my belt, pass it on, share it.
• 33:03
  Joe: It's always been a uh uh pass it on business.
• 33:07
  Joe: And and the respect I have for mentoring really stems from the fact that I was mentored very powerfully and uh sometimes sometimes viciously, um, by older photographers who would take the aside and say, listen, kid, this is the path for you, this is not, or these images are shit.
• 33:30
  Joe: Okay, but these over here have mirror.
• 33:34
  Joe: So follow this path, you know.
• 33:36
  Joe: So um mentoring is a very, very necessary and powerful thing for growth as a photographer.
• 33:44
  Matt: And as a human being, and I think they're not mutually exclusive.
• 33:47
  Matt: You have to be uh, you know, uh you have to, I mean, there's so many obviously different individuals around the world, but the like you said, a lot of photographers had a lot have a lot of a lot of good photographers, I should say, have a lot of things in common.
• 34:00
  Matt: And I think we all need an edit at some point, whether that's with uh photography or with our attitude or with our open-mindedness or with our curiosity, whatever it might be.
• 34:11
  Matt: And that this one re I'm glad you touched upon it, it's one reason I started this podcast because I felt like things were gatekeeped so much.
• 34:20
  Matt: And I, when I started photography, I felt completely isolated.
• 34:25
  Matt: It was either you go and pay a lot of money for a workshop somewhere, and that's a very temporary and trans transitional experience.
• 34:34
  Matt: You get to be with someone maybe for a few days and then it's like off you go, uh, or you would you're done, or you'll do the sterile YouTube learning experience, and and really just wanted someone to sit next to me and just tell me everything they've learned, whether it's right or wrong, just give me as much as you can.
• 34:53
  Matt: And I've always wondered why photography was so precious in its sharing of knowledge, and um it's no different to anything else that we need to pass on information, we need to pass on skills and experiences and life lessons and stories.
• 35:10
  Matt: And I think you've certainly been um a godfather in that respect.
• 35:16
  Matt: So uh thank you for for at least um you know providing those resources to people.
• 35:21
  Matt: And I'm I've got better pictures with Joe, your your new uh education portal here um in front of me, and it definitely makes me want to want to sign up and see what it's all about.
• 35:32
  Matt: But give us a few more details about what is included.
• 35:36
  Matt: If I sign up, what do I get?
• 35:38
  Matt: What am I getting with you?
• 35:40
  Matt: And what's the general kind of model around it?
• 35:44
  Joe: Sure.
• 35:45
  Joe: It it is um, it's a word that's used a lot, but it is very, very interactive.
• 35:50
  Joe: I'm on the site a great deal.
• 35:52
  Joe: And what we found over time, uh, I mean, we constructed the site.
• 35:56
  Joe: Let me start at the beginning here.
• 35:58
  Joe: Uh, there's there's video content, and there are it's uh a whole range of categories from history, you know, and stories from uh jobs that were significant, that were very complex, et cetera, sort of as a backlog of of historical information, right up through the strategies for for uh traveling, for uh preparing for a job.
• 36:25
  Joe: Or as you say, you mentioned workshops.
• 36:28
  Joe: You know, workshops are very, very popular industry now.
• 36:31
  Joe: And what you find is oftentimes people, you know, they'll go on a workshop and then they won't touch their cameras for five or six months.
• 36:38
  Joe: Yeah.
• 36:38
  Joe: And then so we have uh uh offerings in terms of workshop prep.
• 36:45
  Joe: Or if you want to brush up your skills.
• 36:47
  Joe: Today, for instance, I I did an online mentoring session with a very young, very promising photographer based in LA, and she uh signed on for online mentoring.
• 36:59
  Joe: We also do in-person mentoring.
• 37:01
  Joe: I did three stints of in-person mentoring where I work with people in terms of approaching a location, um, sorting out the lighting, you know, relating to the subject, all of that.
• 37:10
  Joe: So it's a very um kind of 360 approach to um to photography and and and hopefully pushing people in the right direction when they when they go out into the world.
• 37:22
  Joe: If there's there's all it's also couched with a great deal of respect for the art and craft.
• 37:28
  Joe: And that stems from my experience in it and and the way that you know I've approached it, the way I was taught.
• 37:36
  Joe: So it is a very, very uh dynamic platform.
• 37:40
  Joe: And the the silver lighting, which I guess we should have expected, but has come on really strong, is that people on the site, a lot of them are supporting each other.
• 37:50
  Joe: People are starting to throw pictures out onto the site, say, I've got this job coming up.
• 37:55
  Joe: In fact, it just happened yesterday.
• 37:57
  Joe: Um, a very active member said, I've got a job coming up where I have to shoot 80 portraits, 80 headshots in two days.
• 38:07
  Joe: Two days?
• 38:08
  Joe: Yeah.
• 38:10
  Joe: And he just threw it out to the community.
• 38:13
  Joe: Does anybody have any thoughts about construction, site, you know, backgrounds, this and that?
• 38:17
  Joe: And people are chipping in and they're trying to help help out or offer notions, ideas, uh, as as I'm on.
• 38:23
  Joe: And as I say, I'm on I'm on the site a lot in a conversational way.
• 38:27
  Joe: I respond very, very quickly.
• 38:29
  Joe: And it's just been a lot of fun.
• 38:32
  Joe: And that is something that is a wonderful byproduct of having the kind of backlog uh of you know, all of that stuff behind me on the wall, you know, that I've shot and to pass this on.
• 38:45
  Joe: So it's been a lot of um, it's been very engaging, very fun, and very lively.
• 38:50
  Matt: Cool.
• 38:50
  Matt: Well, we're we're going to uh show that on the screen and uh link it in the the show notes, of course.
• 38:56
  Matt: Um go check it out.
• 38:57
  Matt: Um in your in your experience with setting this up, this is you know one of many education uh I guess outlets you've done over the years, where what are what do you see as the one thing or a few things that we're not necessarily talking enough about these days as photographers, but especially as hobbyists or beginner photographers or photographers wanting to transition from the hobby side of things into more of a professional structure?
• 39:27
  Matt: What what do you see as the the things that we're not focusing on enough or not really concentrating on enough?
• 39:36
  Joe: Good question, Matt.
• 39:37
  Joe: Um I think it's a couple of fronts.
• 39:40
  Joe: Uh there is to a degree um uh among say the the uh the ranks of amateurs and hobbyists, they they see work and they try to imitate it.
• 39:52
  Joe: Um and they'll they'll see, in fact, some fairly notable teachers have actually come out with books or or websites that say this light goes here at you know, this power, this light goes here at this power, this and it's um it's good information.
• 40:13
  Joe: I'm not decrying it on a level, but what you have to do is, or we have to emphasize to people, uh, is to take that information in, curl it around your own, you know, intestines and your own heart and whatnot, digest it, and it come back with something that is unique to you.
• 40:32
  Joe: And use those um those underpinnings of education to create something that is um uh you know about your eye and about your viewpoint and about the way you look at the world.
• 40:45
  Joe: So that is very, very important.
• 40:47
  Joe: And the the other things that don't get talked about, and we sort of touched on this uh already a bit, is uh a couple of fronts.
• 40:59
  Joe: One is durability, you know, the fact that this is a long, sometimes difficult slog, and it can also can be very physical, you know, uh, and involve, you know, a lot of pushing and pulling, which some folks which take some folks by surprise.
• 41:18
  Joe: And the other idea is to develop skills that allows you to cheat achieve um reproducibility, and by that I mean the cameras are so automatic.
• 41:30
  Joe: You you put a fancy camera on program now and point it at the world, more than likely you're gonna get a decent photograph, sometimes even a really good photograph, depending on the scene that's in front of you.
• 41:43
  Joe: And you start to think like, oh, I'm pretty good at this, you know, I should turn professional uh or head in that direction.
• 41:54
  Joe: And I'm like, okay, well, let's wait a minute, okay?
• 41:59
  Joe: Because that was the camera's response.
• 42:01
  Joe: Maybe 80% of that picture is the camera.
• 42:04
  Joe: What we have to do is reverse that equation so that when you get yourself, if you're gonna call yourself a professional and get into this in a serious way, you have to be able to do tomorrow something that was totally different from what you did today.
• 42:19
  Joe: If you're placed in an adverse situation, okay, how do you figure that out?
• 42:24
  Joe: How do you have the the the gravitas and the technical background to be placed in a difficult uh position and really make a good photograph out of nothing or something that's actually working against you?
• 42:39
  Joe: So reproducibility, can you do tomorrow what you did today?
• 42:43
  Joe: Okay, that is a real um uh boundary really between the status of being, say, an amateur or an occasional photographer and then calling yourself a profession, that there's a significant um boundary line there.
• 43:01
  Joe: And that has to be worked at, and you have to develop skills before you uh make that neat.
• 43:06
  Joe: And so I think that technology sometimes is is so facile, you know, it's so seamless that it can introduce a sense of confidence that is, at least maybe at this particular moment, unwarranted, that needs more work, that needs more sanding down, that needs more crafting on your part.
• 43:32
  Joe: And I've said this a hundred times that art, we always pursue this photograph that we would call art, you know, that you something that is significant, something you want to put on the wall.
• 43:42
  Joe: But art is the house that sits on a foundation called craft.
• 43:46
  Joe: And it's a mutuality there that has to be observed.
• 43:51
  Joe: Because to make good photographs on any consistent level, you have to know your shit.
• 43:57
  Matt: Art sits on the foundation that is.
• 43:59
  Matt: Is craft.
• 44:01
  Matt: I love that.
• 44:02
  Matt: Totally true.
• 44:03
  Matt: Where does the craft then become art?
• 44:07
  Matt: What you know, and you've you've even in this conversation, you've used good and bad quite frequently in in terms of image making.
• 44:15
  Matt: Where does craft become art and where does bad or average become good?
• 44:22
  Matt: And I know that's like a really broad question, but in your eye, in your experience, what are you looking for in in a quote good image end quote?
• 44:36
  Joe: Sure.
• 44:36
  Joe: Um again, I mentioned his name earlier, Eddie Adams.
• 44:39
  Joe: Um he was the very famed uh photodronomist for Associated Press who made the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph many years ago of the um South Vietnamese colonel blowing the brains out of the suspected Viet Cong.
• 44:55
  Joe: And so he had tremendous chops as a photographer, and he always said that the best photographs reach into your rib cage and tear your heart out, which is fairly strong language.
• 45:10
  Joe: Um but um it's also quite true in a in a very real way.
• 45:18
  Joe: For me to get a picture published in the National Geographic had to fire on at least three pistons.
• 45:24
  Joe: Uh one was information.
• 45:26
  Joe: Okay, does it move the story along?
• 45:28
  Joe: The other was pictura.
• 45:30
  Joe: Is it is it a good photograph?
• 45:32
  Joe: And the third was does it involve the reader emotional?
• 45:36
  Joe: And that's really to me, that's the key.
• 45:40
  Joe: Uh, if you can make somebody pause in this unbelievably new visit visually saturated world we live in, and the world of Instagram and likes and Facebook and God almighty, whatever there else is out there, TikTok and and and the the incredibly shrinking attention span that many of us have, and I am guilty of, you know, for sure.
• 46:06
  Joe: Uh, but how do we stop people?
• 46:09
  Joe: Make them sick, make them angry, make them sad, make them laugh, make them uh, in the best of worlds, get them involved, you know, to make them pause in their furious scrolling to actually get involved with a photograph and seek out what does this photograph mean?
• 46:30
  Joe: Why am I affected by it?
• 46:31
  Joe: Because uh I um this is gonna come full circle and hang in there with me.
• 46:37
  Joe: Um, I firmly believe, have always believed, that once you see a truly great photograph, you are changed forever.
• 46:44
  Joe: You might not even know it right at that moment, but somewhere inside your emotional tectonic plates just shifted a little bit.
• 46:52
  Joe: And to that end, what I highly advocate um for any photographer, professional otherwise, and we we actually just launched this on the site, a resource center where I list the books that are important to me.
• 47:09
  Joe: And I admire a tremendous range of photographers.
• 47:14
  Joe: I learned from some amazing photographers.
• 47:17
  Joe: And a lot of those photographers have books, have repositories of their work that is very emotionally involving, is very directive in terms of how you can look at these photographs and feel something, and then pursue something akin to that with your own imagery.
• 47:37
  Joe: That is uh a really powerful thing to do.
• 47:40
  Joe: So I wanted to make sure I mentioned that in the podcast that that um books, historically important photography books, so they don't mean just hitting, you know, 500 pixels or Instagram.
• 47:52
  Joe: Fine, do that.
• 47:53
  Joe: You have to stay up on what's happening and what's current.
• 47:56
  Joe: But there are there's a core of books that I have in my head and my heart all the time.
• 48:02
  Joe: And I I go back to them, I refer to them, I sit with them sometimes because there's a permanence, there's a durability, and there's a satisfaction in knowing that those photographs are still with us.
• 48:12
  Matt: 100%.
• 48:13
  Matt: And just in the physical nature of a book rather than a tiny little screen that we're using our thumb to scroll.
• 48:20
  Matt: It's interesting that we still conflate Instagram with photography.
• 48:25
  Matt: It just doesn't, it's for me, it just doesn't mix anymore.
• 48:29
  Matt: Instagram is much more of an audience building tool or marketing tool.
• 48:33
  Matt: And I wish we kind of shifted our perception of what Instagram is from this way to share images to more like a way to connect and a way to, you know, uh show images, of course, but also market, use it as a marketing tool if you're you're selling stuff or wanting to say things that you feel are important.
• 48:54
  Matt: But yeah, like I'm glad you talked about that because I don't think it gets talked enough about, and I'm that's such a little uh almost um cottage industry in in terms of book publishing and the photo book world and just books with photographs.
• 49:13
  Matt: People, certainly the youngsters as what uh from what I see coming into the industry, don't a really know that there's many photo books out there that have been around for years and years and years that we should really fundamentally study if we want to be better at this craft and this art.
• 49:32
  Matt: Um, and also don't really appreciate maybe uh the the photo books so much.
• 49:39
  Matt: So um yeah, I'm that in photo books as well.
• 49:42
  Matt: I mean, just other than the images, the layout, the sequencing, the the emotion that you were talking about, which makes great images, that some photographers who publish books are able to tap into and like you said, really make us feel something when we turn pages.
• 50:01
  Matt: So, how how do you if you do teach storytelling or elements of storytelling as a photographer, what what do you say about it and how do you advise people to tap into the emotions of the viewer and make people feel something through storytelling is a bit of a cliche word because it's really it's a really difficult thing and it's a it's a broad concept, but touch upon the idea of storytelling for us as as image makers and and any advice that you can give around that.
• 50:37
  Joe: Sure.
• 50:38
  Joe: Um well I th I think you know I can I can jump off from what we were just talking about to to look at a lot of good photography, first and foremost, you know, or or have that incorporated as part of your work ethic to to refer to good photography, to seek out um work that's being done currently, work that's gone before, and that will inform you.
• 51:00
  Joe: The other thing that's of paramount importance uh is research.
• 51:05
  Joe: Knowing your subject before you go out there, if you're gonna tell the story, you have to know the the um the ins and outs of that story and what the potential is.
• 51:16
  Joe: And and there's something about everybody, pretty much, you know, on the internet, you know, if you're being assigned to photograph them.
• 51:25
  Joe: Um you know, just as a small example, I I shot um uh Hillary Clinton's book jacket, a picture from her last one of her lag's publications, and she's used it several times over.
• 51:39
  Joe: I also photographed Chelsea because they wrote a book together.
• 51:42
  Joe: So I did mom and daughter and then together, etc.
• 51:45
  Joe: And you know, um Hillary was pretty much known equation, but not so much Chelsea for me.
• 51:53
  Joe: So I did my research.
• 51:54
  Joe: I knew all the names of her children, what schools they were going to, et cetera.
• 51:59
  Joe: And I was able to banter with her, and that really puts your subject at ease.
• 52:04
  Joe: So you know, you can tell a story during the course of a studio session, you know, if it's a one-hour portrait session or something, you're telling the story of that human being.
• 52:14
  Joe: And one of the things that's very powerful is for you to know something about them to put them at ease.
• 52:20
  Joe: Because I think as photographers, we have to remember that uh I mentioned earlier about crossing emotional boundaries.
• 52:26
  Joe: When someone gets in front of your camera, that's a very vulnerable place to be.
• 52:31
  Joe: And they're giving you the gift of their vulnerability.
• 52:36
  Joe: So what we have to return at the camera behind the lens, okay, is the same kind of vulnerability, the same kind of almost desperate emotional need to do well.
• 52:47
  Joe: So you have to partner that person who's in front of the lens.
• 52:50
  Joe: You have to take care of them, not only while you're making the photographs, but in the aftermath of that, you have to be the good shepherd of their image.
• 52:57
  Joe: I did a uh, it was a very emotional project right after um the 9-11 disaster.
• 53:04
  Joe: Uh it was called Faces of Ground Zero.
• 53:06
  Joe: I used the world's only giant Polaroid camera.
• 53:09
  Joe: And 25 years later, hard to believe, here we are.
• 53:14
  Joe: Um, I'm still friends with any number of those people who stepped in front of the camera.
• 53:19
  Joe: And not a single one of them has ever seen one of their pictures used from that very emotional time in any sort of untoward way.
• 53:28
  Joe: You know, I've been extremely careful with the gift that they gave me by coming to that camera and standing in front of it during those very desperate days right after 9-11.
• 53:38
  Joe: So I think there's uh a big responsibility we have when we're story storytellers out there engaging with people, is to know our subject matter, be respectful of people we encounter, and then deliver on the promise of that story and be careful with it.
• 53:57
  Matt: Yeah, well said.
• 53:58
  Matt: Um, and I wanted to touch upon some of the images that you made, and you kindly sent over some images that we we uh will show on the screen and may have already done so already, but I wanted to uh kind of touch upon a couple of these and get a little bit more context or or as the story behind it, because there are a few that stand out to me just from a personal level, and this goes on to what we've just been talking about in terms of connecting with the viewer and uh driving story, driving emotion.
• 54:27
  Matt: But as a as an aviator myself, the first one that stuck out was the blue angel, I think it's blue angels uh from the cockpit.
• 54:35
  Matt: Please tell me about this image, how you got it, what where the opportunity came from, and just this experience of you pulling multiple G's probably at the same time as you know, pointing a camera.
• 54:48
  Matt: Please, yeah, give give us the story behind that image.
• 54:51
  Joe: Sure.
• 54:51
  Joe: Uh I was very fortunate.
• 54:53
  Joe: I was assigned by National Geographic to do a story called The Future of Flight, and I shot it uh on a Nikon D1X.
• 55:01
  Joe: It was the first time in the history of National Geographic that uh they published a story without shooting a scrap of film.
• 55:08
  Joe: So the So when was this?
• 55:12
  Joe: Let's see, it was a cover of 2000, it was in 2002, I think it was.
• 55:20
  Joe: Yeah.
• 55:21
  Joe: Must have I missed my guess.
• 55:23
  Joe: And um yeah, I think that's accurate.
• 55:27
  Joe: And the uh story was you know all about flight and the you know, the phenomena of modern aviation as it was plunging forward.
• 55:38
  Joe: And you you being an aviator will be very you know keen on this and sympathetic to it and and knowledgeable about it.
• 55:46
  Joe: Uh the the developments in aviation and the technology are you know off the charts, you know, similar to what we're experiencing in photography, just the the uh um fantastic sort of abilities some of these planes have.
• 56:01
  Joe: And in the course of that, I um I rang up the blue angels.
• 56:06
  Joe: And of course, then you just rang them up.
• 56:11
  Matt: One eight hundred blue angels.
• 56:13
  Joe: Yes, exactly, exactly, and got in touch with them and we explained the story as you do.
• 56:18
  Joe: And of course, you know, there's a lot of pride in the military services, and the Navy wanted to be represented in this story, and so they said, Yeah, sure, come on down.
• 56:29
  Joe: You can observe us training and do a story about us, and uh, you can fly with us.
• 56:35
  Joe: And so I I ended up flying twice with the Blue Angels in the number four uh position, uh, which is their what they call the slot, which is the the tail, you know, on they have a diamond formation and a delta formation.
• 56:48
  Joe: So the diamond formation is the four-plane arrangement, lead, two wings, and then the slot.
• 56:53
  Joe: So I was in the in the slot plane in the backseat of an FAA team and thankfully, you know, I had a great pilot, you know, it's called Simus Moose.
• 57:04
  Joe: And as in Ruby, you know, in the backseat of a um, you know, an airplane like this, a supersonic airplane like this, you've you are utterly dependent on the pilot because the pilot has to give you a heads up, you know, and Moose was great about that.
• 57:20
  Joe: Because if you have your head down looking at your LCD and he pulls a 6G tur, you're you're toast.
• 57:26
  Joe: You know, you're toast.
• 57:28
  Joe: So he would be he would be coaching me along.
• 57:31
  Joe: And the smart thing Geographic did was send me to flight school prior to the story.
• 57:36
  Joe: So I was flying uh in uh civilian uh aerobatic plans uh for about a week or so.
• 57:43
  Joe: And my amazing wife, Annie, was with me, and uh she would uh be there on the on the ground when I would get down and like give me a banana, help me clean up because I I would I would know that I would go into these civilian aerobatic planes, which are, as I'm sure you know, are very powerful, and you can pull a lot of G in these planes.
• 58:09
  Joe: And I was pulling hammerheads and min radius turns and stuff like that, and I knew every day I would get sick.
• 58:16
  Joe: And I would get sick, and I would get, oh my god.
• 58:20
  Joe: And uh, but eventually, after a few days, I was getting less sick until I started to get used to it.
• 58:26
  Joe: And I had good pilots who were coaching me like to keep my situational awareness outside of the cockpit, concentrate on things on the horizon.
• 58:34
  Joe: And so when I flew with the blues, the first time I flew with them, I did really well.
• 58:38
  Joe: I flew with them about two years later.
• 58:41
  Joe: I was not up to speed, and I didn't do so well.
• 58:43
  Joe: But uh, you know, uh, you know, it's it's it's an extraordinary thing.
• 58:50
  Joe: Uh and this is up and over.
• 58:52
  Joe: I'm in the number four plane, and so I'm shooting this, I believe, with a um like 1224 back in back in that time.
• 59:01
  Joe: And uh so we're upside down and I'm framing, you know, uh as well as I can.
• 59:06
  Joe: This is not a heavy G maneuver, you know.
• 59:09
  Joe: With a really heavy G maneuver, you can't even get your camera to your eye.
• 59:13
  Joe: I I've taken up to 9.2 G's.
• 59:15
  Joe: And at that point, I I would black out.
• 59:18
  Matt: Did you black out?
• 59:19
  Matt: Okay.
• 59:19
  Matt: Wow.
• 59:20
  Joe: Yeah, yeah.
• 59:21
  Joe: I flew I flew on the F-22.
• 59:23
  Joe: That's uh not in this in this um gathering of pictures.
• 59:28
  Joe: Um again, the power of the geographic.
• 59:30
  Joe: I was I was actually backseat in that um in an F-16, and uh we flew observational on the F-22, which was the new hot plane in the sky, and we were allowed 30 minutes only, and Geographic had to go all the way to the top of the Air Force chain of command to get permission to do this.
• 59:52
  Joe: So it was a lot of pressure on me.
• 59:54
  Joe: And so again, I had a really good pilot, and we only flew for 30 minutes.
• 1:00:00
  Joe: I got some decent photographs of the F-22, and then heading back to uh Edwards Air Force Base, the pilot said to me, uh, you know, I don't want to land with a a really relatively full full fuel tank because they don't like to land heavy, you know.
• 1:00:18
  Joe: And so I want to burn some some fuel.
• 1:00:21
  Joe: And where can you put up with me if I make a few moves up here?
• 1:00:24
  Joe: I said, Yeah, I'll stick with you, you know, and I and I did fine, um, all the way through 9.2, and he wanted to keep his skills sharp.
• 1:00:34
  Joe: And it when I could ticked over nine G's, I lost the spectrum, I lost the color spectrum, I grayed out, and then I just vignette it and and I was gone, you know, only for a couple of seconds.
• 1:00:47
  Joe: But when I when the G's eased up, I was like, Wow, I'm glad you're still flying the airplane because I just took a vacation back here, you know.
• 1:00:57
  Joe: Um, yeah, it's extraordinary the physicality of of these high-powered aircraft.
• 1:01:06
  Matt: One wonderful story.
• 1:01:07
  Matt: Um I want to touch on one more image before we before we wrap it up.
• 1:01:11
  Matt: Um the there's some performance art in here, but there's there's one that kind of took my fancy just because of this um the curiosity that I'm getting drawn into with this man, old man at a piano in in a living room somewhere.
• 1:01:27
  Matt: Can you tell me about that image?
• 1:01:29
  Matt: Lighting's beautiful, compositions, incredible.
• 1:01:31
  Matt: And there's there's a story here that I'm not sure what it is, but I'm interested to find out more.
• 1:01:38
  Joe: Yes, sure.
• 1:01:39
  Joe: Um that was that's um he's gone now, but that's Leonard Burstiner at the piano.
• 1:01:44
  Joe: And uh I photographed Lenny several times.
• 1:01:49
  Joe: I got to know him a little bit, um, just a little bit.
• 1:01:53
  Joe: He was a volcano of a man, um, difficult to be around sometimes, but he was well and truly a genius.
• 1:02:00
  Joe: And this is at his home and his estate up in Connecticut.
• 1:02:04
  Joe: He's actually composing there.
• 1:02:06
  Joe: And I lit the room.
• 1:02:08
  Joe: I mean, you know, here's this is shot in the days of film.
• 1:02:12
  Joe: If you look closely at this image, you'll see in the upper right-hand corner the the reflection of my umbrella in his window.
• 1:02:19
  Joe: Oh yeah.
• 1:02:20
  Joe: And, you know, I can retouch that out, you know, Matt, but I don't.
• 1:02:26
  Joe: It's just there.
• 1:02:27
  Joe: It was there in the original film, and so I leave it alone because it just was a piece of the puzzle that you know I made that day.
• 1:02:38
  Joe: Uh and uh Lenny is really into uh his work at that point.
• 1:02:43
  Joe: He wasn't paying any attention to me, and I just felt like, yes, this is this is a picture of genius at work.
• 1:02:51
  Joe: This really is.
• 1:02:52
  Joe: And genius is a word that gets you know bandied about too too easily nowadays.
• 1:02:58
  Joe: But Leonard Bernstein is someone we'll we will be playing his music a hundred years from.
• 1:03:06
  Matt: Yeah, it's a I mean it's uh it's metaphorical, I guess, with that as well, in terms of the image.
• 1:03:13
  Matt: It's it looks like a timeless image and this beautiful moment where he he doesn't look engaged with anything else other than the art and the process that's directly in front of him.
• 1:03:26
  Matt: And you've captured that so so beautifully.
• 1:03:29
  Matt: Um, Joe, you're a wonderful photographer, wonderful conversationalist.
• 1:03:34
  Matt: Um, before you leave, tell us uh what the future lies for for us as photographers, but more importantly, you know, seeing we've talked about low barriers to entry potentially for photographers coming in.
• 1:03:49
  Matt: We've also talked about competition being quite relentless, but what do you think the future holds and where do you think the advantages are for newcomers these days that maybe you didn't have or your generation didn't when you were starting out?
• 1:04:03
  Joe: Yes, I I think there's uh a lot of advantages.
• 1:04:07
  Joe: I see young photographers who are astonishingly talented and they know so much.
• 1:04:14
  Joe: And I I think back to those days when I first, you know, had a camera in hand.
• 1:04:20
  Joe: I came out of school.
• 1:04:21
  Joe: Honestly, man, I couldn't find my ass with both hands.
• 1:04:25
  Joe: You know, I just, you know, god of Lenny, I was a babe in the woods.
• 1:04:30
  Joe: But young photographers coming along now, I think are much more sophisticated, they're much more worldly, they're much more technically adept.
• 1:04:37
  Joe: They're growing up uh with not only a knowledge of how to make a still image, they're growing up with uh and it's a requisite, I think, now to know how to make a moving image uh with the intricacies of the web.
• 1:04:52
  Joe: Um they know audio and visual.
• 1:04:55
  Joe: They have this compendium of talents and skills that are necessary, but also really truly wonderful to have at your behest, you know, because they need them to survive, but they will also um put them to very good use.
• 1:05:12
  Joe: So, my my job when I first started this was relatively simple.
• 1:05:18
  Joe: Make a good photograph.
• 1:05:19
  Joe: You know, go out and tell a good story, make a good photograph, come back and then tomorrow go out and do it again.
• 1:05:26
  Joe: Now I think it's much more complex, and photographers entering the field have to be prepared for that.
• 1:05:32
  Joe: They have to know how to do many, many things.
• 1:05:36
  Joe: They have to know the web, they have to know their craft, they have to know um moving and still, they have to be able to deliver results under pressure and with great speed.
• 1:05:48
  Joe: All of those things are um incumbent on young photographers now, and it's not an easy gig at all.
• 1:05:55
  Joe: Uh and and also, too, because we are our own.
• 1:05:59
  Joe: Now we become our own brand, we become our own business.
• 1:06:03
  Joe: They have to have an equivalent amount of business information and business savvy to survive, to keep the lights on.
• 1:06:13
  Joe: And the equation remains the same, I think.
• 1:06:16
  Joe: Uh, and even though it's more complex nowadays, I've always referred to the fact that as a photographer, as you go forward, you need food for the table and food for the soul.
• 1:06:25
  Joe: Food for the table that'll keep the lights on, and food for the soul that'll keep your photographic spirit alive.
• 1:06:36
  Matt: Great answer.
• 1:06:37
  Matt: Would you say the same thing if I asked you where one should focus for the next five years?
• 1:06:47
  Joe: I think I would, yes, man.
• 1:06:49
  Joe: I think I would.
• 1:06:50
  Joe: You have to develop skills, and they could be referred to at this point as survival skills, you know.
• 1:06:57
  Matt: Um multifaceted skills.
• 1:07:00
  Joe: Right.
• 1:07:01
  Joe: And you indicated earlier, too, there's a certain isolation that's occurred with digital.
• 1:07:06
  Joe: Like, you know, my best advice to uh an intern that we had here at the studio years ago was go get yourself a job at a newspaper.
• 1:07:16
  Joe: But the last time, the last intern uh we had really, she was a wonderful photographer.
• 1:07:22
  Joe: She got an internship at the Seattle Times, and it was during the digital era uh in the early 2000s.
• 1:07:29
  Joe: And she came back from that and she had not met a single staff photographer at the times because everybody would, they would get their assignments on email and they would digitally ship.
• 1:07:42
  Joe: There was no more wet dark room, there was no collective space anymore where photography would get together at the end of the day, which is, you know, was the the great way to you know give each other a bunch of grief, but also a great way for a young photographer to learn from older photographers.
• 1:07:59
  Joe: So there is an isolation that I think has occurred where we really are set back on our own pins and we have to know our stuff in and of ourselves.
• 1:08:11
  Matt: We'll leave it there.
• 1:08:12
  Matt: Thank you so much, Joe.
• 1:08:13
  Matt: Uh so many nuggets of knowledge and words of wisdom.
• 1:08:16
  Matt: Uh I hope everyone will uh will jump onto your um new education platform, which is called Better Pictures with Joe.
• 1:08:25
  Matt: And I feel like I can take Better Pictures with Joe now.
• 1:08:28
  Matt: So thank you so much for spending the last hour with me.
• 1:08:32
  Matt: I'll let you go and have your glass of wine and your dinner with your wife.
• 1:08:36
  Matt: Um, but until next time, thanks, Joe.
• 1:08:38
  Joe: Thank you.
• 1:08:38
  Joe: Well, I'm very honored by the invitation.
• 1:08:40
  Joe: You're a hell of a good photographer in your own right, so I appreciate you reaching out.
• 1:08:44
  Joe: And it's been a wonderful conversation.
• 1:08:46
  Joe: Appreciate it.
• 1:08:56
  Matt: If you stayed with this conversation until the end, there is a good chance you're someone who values depth, reflection, and taking time with ideas rather than just rushing past them.
• 1:09:08
  Matt: That's the spirit behind my Voice Alchemy Book Club.
• 1:09:12
  Matt: It's a monthly space where photographers and creatives alike come together to sit with meaningful work, photo books, books, essays, and long-form projects and talk honestly about what they're seeing, feeling, and trying to make themselves.
• 1:09:30
  Matt: It's quiet, it's thoughtful and intentionally human.
• 1:09:35
  Matt: There's no pressure to perform, no need to have answers.
• 1:09:39
  Matt: We're all just figuring it out.
• 1:09:40
  Matt: It's just time and space to reconnect with others, your work, and your thinking.
• 1:09:45
  Matt: So if that sounds like something you would benefit from, you can find more information via the link in the notes and the description below.
• 1:09:53
  Matt: Hope to see you there.