Latest / The MOOD Podcast / The Heart & Craft of Wedding Photography with Love Documentarian Casey Fatchett, E046

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The Heart & Craft of Wedding Photography with Love Documentarian Casey Fatchett, E046 · The MOOD Podcast

• 0:00
  Casey Fatchett: I found myself getting burnt out.
• 0:02
  Casey Fatchett: Every five years.
• 0:04
  Casey Fatchett: I was struggling mentally with my anxiety about legacy.
• 0:10
  Casey Fatchett: I talked to a therapist.
• 0:12
  Casey Fatchett: I know that that can seem like a daunting task.
• 0:15
  Matt Jacob: You see mental health in photography.
• 0:18
  Casey Fatchett: It can be a very solitary endeavor, even when you're running your own business.
• 0:22
  Casey Fatchett: You have to find your ways to step away from the work of a perfectionist and like nothing can be done to my standard, it's such an individual pursuit.
• 0:34
  Matt Jacob: A lot of the time you're often on your own.
• 0:36
  Matt Jacob: You're the only one that's pressing that shutter button.
• 0:38
  Casey Fatchett: At that time, the people who are really good at marketing themselves tend to be the most successful in this business.
• 0:45
  Casey Fatchett: There's this feeling that you need to be constantly creating content.
• 0:50
  Casey Fatchett: 99% of Instagram posts don't get more than five likes 99%.
• 0:57
  Casey Fatchett: I remember when I was starting out and feeling really scared about raising my rates.
• 1:01
  Matt Jacob: That's a really important topic.
• 1:03
  Casey Fatchett: Oh, nobody's going to hire me.
• 1:04
  Matt Jacob: Would you recommend people to try or go into wedding photography?
• 1:09
  Casey Fatchett: Oh God, this is the first piece of advice I'd give to anybody who wants to get into photography is Mr Casey Fatchett, welcome to the Moo Podcast.
• 1:26
  Matt Jacob: Great to have you.
• 1:27
  Casey Fatchett: Thank you for having me.
• 1:28
  Casey Fatchett: I appreciate you having me on.
• 1:30
  Matt Jacob: We spoke a few weeks ago in your podcast and we'll get to the Nerdy Photographer podcast, probably a bit later, which was a very enjoyable conversation.
• 1:41
  Matt Jacob: Thanks for having me on and I'm glad I can return the favor, and I thought we'd just start by I as something I noticed on your profile actually, I think this was even before we spoke last time because I generally look at people's instagram.
• 1:55
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, we're all full foul of looking at people's instagram first, probably to kind of make a judgment on who they are, and we're going to talk.
• 2:01
  Casey Fatchett: We'll talk about that later a little, a little stalking yeah yes, what I noticed on there was um.
• 2:07
  Matt Jacob: In your bio you said love documentarian.
• 2:10
  Matt Jacob: Can you explain what that means?
• 2:13
  Casey Fatchett: uh documenting, loving a wedding, like I get tired of saying wedding photographer, because I mean it's uh, it's not just weddings, it's, you know, I do anniversaries and uh engagements and proposals and all that stuff, and it's just like for me, even in portraits or whatever I'm doing, and I was actually thinking about this when you had uh right before uh.
• 2:36
  Casey Fatchett: We started talking now about a photo I took of my parents um, for their 50th wedding anniversary.
• 2:42
  Casey Fatchett: I did a, a little portrait of them.
• 2:45
  Casey Fatchett: You can see the love between them.
• 2:48
  Casey Fatchett: Documenting that love is a big cornerstone of what I do.
• 2:56
  Casey Fatchett: I'm very much about emotional content, the emotional weight of the images that I create, and I feel that love is one of the most spectacular things in the world that we get to experience.
• 3:12
  Casey Fatchett: And finding that in all of its different forms whether it's, you know, love between two partners, whether it's love between parents and children, friends, whatever shape it takes uh I like to like, I like to be there to uh capture that so that it can be remembered and you've been doing this now for a couple of decades.
• 3:36
  Matt Jacob: Let's not give away your age, but let's assume you started extremely young yeah, um what?
• 3:45
  Matt Jacob: Tell us a little bit about your history without giving us a full life story, but give us an introduction as to how you got into photography.
• 3:52
  Matt Jacob: But, more importantly, why the?
• 3:53
  Matt Jacob: Why such interest in, in capturing love between humans and weddings and and kind of human interest?
• 4:02
  Casey Fatchett: uh, I originally moved to new y York city to be an actor and when I arrived here, you got to have like a dozen day jobs to pay your bills, uh, so one of my day jobs was, you know, doing photography, because I I had always had a, I've been a hobby of mine for a very long time and I had a little bit of training in college and like journalism and you know, but not a lot of formal training, and so I was doing headshots for other actors and band photos and live band shots.
• 4:36
  Casey Fatchett: And then, you know, friends of mine started getting married and I would go and I, you know, when all this started, I was shooting actually on this camera right here.
• 4:46
  Casey Fatchett: Uh, this is a minolta, uh, xg one and I had a couple of film cameras that, uh, I would, you know, go to the wedding and shoot a roll of film or two rolls of film, pick my favorite two shots out of you know those rolls, blow it up, send it as like an extra gift and my friends would say like, oh, this is better than the guy we hired to do this.
• 5:09
  Casey Fatchett: Um, which is fine, because there's one picture.
• 5:13
  Casey Fatchett: I mean, I think back, I'm like I focused it all into one photo, um, and so I was like, oh well, maybe I should look into that.
• 5:20
  Casey Fatchett: And I did my first wedding and it really resonated with me, um, on a lot of different levels, both as like the sort of there's a performance aspect.
• 5:32
  Casey Fatchett: That spoke to me as, you know, an actor and performer, that is just like you know, you prepare and you get yourself super prepared, but there's no do-overs, you just have to improvise your way out if anything happens or anything goes wrong, which, in the 700 plus weddings that I've done, like there are plenty of things have gone wrong and I've had to, you know, like, roll with punches, I've sewn people into dresses, you know, used the stain stick, you know stuff, and you know your therapist, your comedian, all these different things and that really, you know, kind of stuck with me.
• 6:06
  Casey Fatchett: And then, as I started to I don't know get more introspective as to why I enjoyed these things, was to then go into it and like, oh, what speaks to me?
• 6:18
  Casey Fatchett: And it was like that those emotions of the wedding day and the love and all around um, or what really like, sunk into me and felt like, yeah, this is what I need, like I'm I'm tend to be, I'm an extroverted introvert, um, I can have my, my social battery can get worn out, but I find that doing weddings actually like charges me up, um, even when I'm around, uh, around you know, hundreds of people and like it's just, there's just so much you know, love in the room and energy and positivity and whatever, even though it can be a stressful situation, it just like it, it powers me and I'll be up for, I mean, like I can come back home at you know, after a 16 hour day and I'll still be like wired just to you know, like, and my wife will be like I'm glad you made a home, I'm going to bed I know you're going to be up for another two hours, um, because I'm just like, so it's so exciting for me.
• 7:15
  Casey Fatchett: Um, so yeah, that's why I've continued to do it after all these years.
• 7:19
  Casey Fatchett: And I was just having a conversation with someone today who was having a little bit of a I don't know crisis of whether they still wanted to.
• 7:27
  Casey Fatchett: They've been doing wedding photography for 10 years and they're just wondering if they wanted to keep doing it.
• 7:32
  Casey Fatchett: I probably, every five years I've had like a I have a talk with myself Do you still enjoy this?
• 7:38
  Casey Fatchett: Is this still what you want to do?
• 7:40
  Casey Fatchett: Is this what you want to focus your energies on?
• 7:42
  Casey Fatchett: And I always kind of come back to that Like the thing that I love the most are the getting to meet new people who are in love and get to know their story and to document that and to be there with them on that journey and to help them as much as I can.
• 8:00
  Casey Fatchett: I'm a helper.
• 8:01
  Matt Jacob: I love to help, not just taking photos, but, like you know, I just, I just like to help people come and help my audience would you, uh, would you recommend people to try or go into wedding photography, because the you know the I I'm very ignorant of it.
• 8:20
  Matt Jacob: I've never done it.
• 8:21
  Matt Jacob: Um, it's never you know been.
• 8:25
  Matt Jacob: You know, it's never been something that's I've been drawn to.
• 8:27
  Matt Jacob: So I I don't know much about it other than getting married once myself, hopefully the only time and, uh, and just seeing these guys work so hard, but having such amazing passion for at least showing, showing that and I, you know, obviously see a lot of wedding photographers around and about and on online and stuff, and they're you know what you're saying that passion for being part of a special day, sharing that day with people how not just, you know, wearing a camera.
• 8:57
  Matt Jacob: Right, you're wearing so many other different hats.
• 8:59
  Matt Jacob: Would you still like, after so, after all of your experience, would you still sit across from a 25 year old looking to go into and say, yes, do it, it's worth it?
• 9:11
  Casey Fatchett: um, I, what I will say is and it's funny because I just posted an area like a little while ago, posted a humorous reel about this um, yeah, it's worth it if you're strong enough.
• 9:24
  Casey Fatchett: Um, it's not easy and that's the thing it's.
• 9:28
  Casey Fatchett: It's it's tougher than I think people going into it at first realize there's a lot of.
• 9:36
  Casey Fatchett: I mean, as with any photography business, if you're doing running a business, there's a lot of busy work behind the scenes.
• 9:44
  Casey Fatchett: It doesn't involve photography at all.
• 9:45
  Casey Fatchett: That's non-creative work that can be very draining.
• 9:49
  Casey Fatchett: Um, my recommendations to people would be do you really want to do this?
• 9:56
  Casey Fatchett: Do you want to give up your weekends because a lot of weddings are on the weekends?
• 9:59
  Casey Fatchett: Um, and uh, luckily, I got started in this before I had a family, before I was married, and you know like they had a lot of um, other obligations of any kind and, um, yeah, I was just like, you know, whatever weekends don't matter to me.
• 10:19
  Casey Fatchett: I mean like it was that was part of my like stupid actor brain, was like back then was like oh, you know, I can this on the weekend and then I can still do my rehearsals during the week and that's all there is to it and not realizing how much business stuff went into it.
• 10:33
  Casey Fatchett: So, yeah, I'd say A, take a business class if you're going to do it.
• 10:39
  Casey Fatchett: Learn how to run a business, learn about marketing yourself.
• 10:44
  Casey Fatchett: It's not going to be easy.
• 10:45
  Casey Fatchett: They're going to be really long days it's going to be.
• 10:48
  Casey Fatchett: There are going to be times when you get really tired, um, and I would suggest, if you're thinking about doing wedding photography, by all means feel free to do that.
• 10:58
  Casey Fatchett: Um, I would suggest working with another photographer as a second photographer, um, as like an assistant, to get a sense of what it's actually like before you go fully into it.
• 11:12
  Casey Fatchett: Um, because I dove fully into it and had no idea what I was doing.
• 11:18
  Casey Fatchett: Um, and I made a lot of mistakes early on, I'd say the first five years as a wedding photographer.
• 11:26
  Casey Fatchett: I made silly mistakes here and there, like my contracts, left things out of contracts that would have helped me in the long run.
• 11:33
  Casey Fatchett: I would have, you know, like, done certain things differently.
• 11:38
  Casey Fatchett: I would have advertised or marketed myself in different ways.
• 11:42
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, I think that the main thing would be like, try it out, see if you actually like it, because once you're actually there and you're spending like eight to ten hours around people who are partying and you know you're it affects different people differently.
• 12:01
  Casey Fatchett: Um, for me it's like you know, I can be the fly on the wall and walk around the party and feel fine about the other people that I have been around in the industry like to kind of make themselves part of the event.
• 12:13
  Casey Fatchett: That's not my vibe.
• 12:15
  Casey Fatchett: They like they.
• 12:17
  Casey Fatchett: They kind of like want to be like attention on them and you know, like teach their own.
• 12:23
  Casey Fatchett: But that's just, that's just not my style.
• 12:25
  Casey Fatchett: But I'd say, like, try it out, see if you really like it.
• 12:29
  Casey Fatchett: And you know, I see a lot of people in this industry now, younger folks, um, who do it for like five years and then they're like I don't want to do it anymore, I want to do something else.
• 12:41
  Casey Fatchett: That's fine, you don't have to say stick with it for the rest of your photography career.
• 12:47
  Casey Fatchett: I am finding myself to be one of the outliers in that sense, as people who I started, who started around the same time as I did, in my circle of photography, friends and weddings 90% of them, maybe more, have decided that they move into different types of photography.
• 13:10
  Casey Fatchett: Um, like I said, teach their own.
• 13:14
  Casey Fatchett: Uh.
• 13:14
  Casey Fatchett: But yeah, if you were starting out and thinking about doing it.
• 13:17
  Casey Fatchett: It's not easy.
• 13:18
  Casey Fatchett: Uh, you have to kind of know you.
• 13:21
  Casey Fatchett: You have to do different kinds of photography.
• 13:23
  Casey Fatchett: Um, you're doing still lifes, you're doing portraits, you're doing event stuff like people moving around and dancing.
• 13:30
  Casey Fatchett: Um, you have to be, you have to be able to do a lot of different things.
• 13:36
  Casey Fatchett: Um, so it's not just like, oh, you know, we're gonna get these pictures of you know, these lovely pictures of people you know standing all posed.
• 13:44
  Casey Fatchett: Uh, it's not all, all there is to it and it's, like I said, all the work behind the scenes that goes into it can be, can, I think, is the one thing that I know consistently gives people a bad taste in their mouth for wedding industry stuff I think I I find that with all photographers in in general, I mean, I can imagine the, the work involved with wedding photography and, like you said, you have to, you have to be good at so many.
• 14:15
  Matt Jacob: We think of wedding.
• 14:16
  Matt Jacob: Well, we, as in the ignorant people who don't do it, think of wedding photography as a genre in itself, but actually it's multiple genres packed into kind of one craft, as it were.
• 14:26
  Matt Jacob: But I think the the majority of newer photographers or should I say like people just getting into it and I was like this when I started as well you don't quite realize the admin and business skills, the entrepreneurial skills, the marketing skills, the sales skills, like all of these things that really you should have a degree for you know to cover all of these skill sets that you spend.
• 14:51
  Matt Jacob: And, yeah, you learn along the way, but you also waste a lot of time you might waste, you know, you might devalue your brand, you might waste connections, networks, reputation.
• 15:01
  Matt Jacob: So I don't, I think people don't quite realize, as a photographer, whatever genre, whatever part of photography you go into, I think the business and marketing skills, really if you want to do it full time, that is, if you want to make a living out of it.
• 15:17
  Matt Jacob: That has to come first.
• 15:19
  Matt Jacob: And because you, you know, you, you see the most successful.
• 15:22
  Matt Jacob: You know, I've met many photographers who are earning really good income from their photography.
• 15:27
  Matt Jacob: And they're not the best photographers, right, but they are the.
• 15:30
  Matt Jacob: They are very, very good at marketing, sales, business, now, just general entrepreneurship, networking, all this kind of stuff, and I just it is something that I didn't realize when I first started.
• 15:43
  Matt Jacob: Oh yeah, it's photography, it's cool.
• 15:45
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, just pick up a camera, go and take shots, go and do cool projects.
• 15:48
  Casey Fatchett: No, like, that's like 10 of it right right, yeah, if you're, if you're lucky, it's more than 10 percent um for a job.
• 15:57
  Casey Fatchett: When it's when you're running your own business, that's another thing.
• 16:01
  Casey Fatchett: It's like you have to decide, like, especially in like wedding world, like you could go and work for somebody else's studio and not have to worry about all of that stuff.
• 16:09
  Casey Fatchett: So that's another thing to consider.
• 16:11
  Casey Fatchett: Um, but a lot of people want to run their own ship.
• 16:13
  Casey Fatchett: You know they want to be the, the captain.
• 16:15
  Casey Fatchett: That's how I am.
• 16:17
  Casey Fatchett: I didn't like I left, uh, like my other jobs that I had when I like the other like side gigs that I had when I was acting, because I was making money for other people and I was kind of like, I'm tired of making money for other people, I want to make money for me.
• 16:29
  Casey Fatchett: Um, and, yeah, it's the, the people who are really good at marketing themselves tend to be the most successful in this business.
• 16:40
  Casey Fatchett: Um, I've had the conversation many times where it's like you know, like skill and the best photographer, like he you may not you may have never seen some of the best photographers in the world yeah and and, honestly, we look at the past and we, like you know some of these people that we think are some of the best photographers of their genre.
• 17:02
  Casey Fatchett: Nobody saw their photos until after they were dead because, like you know, they just they, just you know worked in obscurity for their entire lives, um, until somebody like found their, all their negatives and were like let's take a look at these.
• 17:16
  Casey Fatchett: And people were like holy shit, they were really good.
• 17:18
  Casey Fatchett: Um, yeah, it's, it's interesting how much that plays a part.
• 17:24
  Casey Fatchett: So, yeah, I would suggest.
• 17:26
  Casey Fatchett: It's funny.
• 17:27
  Casey Fatchett: I went to a school that had a really great business program and my mother said, like you should take some business classes.
• 17:34
  Casey Fatchett: And I was like sure, I'll take some business classes.
• 17:37
  Casey Fatchett: And I didn't.
• 17:38
  Casey Fatchett: I took a lot of art classes.
• 17:40
  Casey Fatchett: I took like one business class.
• 17:41
  Casey Fatchett: There were all these like prerequisites you had to do before you got to like the interesting stuff, like marketing, um, and so I was like whatever.
• 17:49
  Casey Fatchett: And then, after running my own business for a couple of years, she'd be like how, how, how's that going for you?
• 17:56
  Casey Fatchett: Like, I wish I took some of those business classes.
• 17:57
  Casey Fatchett: Um, yeah, I would recommend, if you're planning to get into any form of photography or running your own business.
• 18:05
  Casey Fatchett: Take, take some business classes, find like a wherever you are, find some sort of continuing education program or whatever is nearby you and just get a taste and couple it with real life experience.
• 18:20
  Matt Jacob: So be that assistant and just work, just, even if it's just for a year.
• 18:24
  Matt Jacob: Be the dog's body, be that humble person and just learn from, even if it's someone who you don't necessarily think is amazing or but that that's any.
• 18:33
  Matt Jacob: Any photographer who's who has a sustainable and ongoing consistent business is doing something right.
• 18:41
  Matt Jacob: So you can learn so much from these people and I wish I did that I.
• 18:46
  Matt Jacob: I had the kind of the business side of it, but I didn't kind of.
• 18:49
  Matt Jacob: I was desperate for a mentor and I think that the word mentor is a little bit of a dirty word these days but I would say more of an advisor or coach, someone that you can just watch and learn right, not necessarily have a structured course or structured meetings.
• 19:04
  Matt Jacob: Just be that assistant, maybe even just once a week or in your spare time, and just go and watch and learn, and there's so much you can gain from that before you have to make a decision which way you're going and in the meantime you can learn, you can do homework, you can do online courses in your spare time.
• 19:22
  Matt Jacob: You don't have to do an official structured program like at university or anything.
• 19:27
  Matt Jacob: But so yeah, I totally agree with you and I think I think that's a you know, it's just, it just doesn't exist so much anymore that kind of apprenticeship approach.
• 19:34
  Matt Jacob: It just doesn't.
• 19:36
  Matt Jacob: You know, people want it now, people want people want to be famous on social media, people want, people want everything.
• 19:43
  Casey Fatchett: Now, right, it's like, oh, just give me, I want to, I want to be, yeah, yeah, they don't want to be patient yeah I, I I would say I'm very lucky.
• 19:52
  Casey Fatchett: Uh, I mentioned before like about the first five manager for a very like active studio, so I would go in two, three days a week and work there and I got to see how they ran the business and I got to learn like what I would do, like, like what I thought, okay, that's, that's something I should be doing.
• 20:26
  Casey Fatchett: Um, and this is something I should be doing differently than what they do, how they do, cause I saw them like a not treating their clients so well and I was like that can't do that, like that's not how I want to.
• 20:37
  Casey Fatchett: Like I got to make focus on, you know, better client service there.
• 20:42
  Casey Fatchett: And then other things were like you know how they did the books and like how they all those things that I really wasn't that familiar with.
• 20:53
  Casey Fatchett: I got to go walk in and like see their system for doing things and seeing like, okay, this is how you know I could adapt that to work for me in some way and have have a better sense of, you know, the business side of it.
• 21:06
  Casey Fatchett: I think it's great but, like you said, I think that there's a, there's a rush.
• 21:09
  Casey Fatchett: People have a rush.
• 21:11
  Casey Fatchett: They want to like jump into it and be, you know, I don't know.
• 21:17
  Casey Fatchett: I think that our industry uh, it just, it just clicked in my head was the like there's always like 30 under 30s and like those things, those sorts of things like rising stars, of whatever, those like magazine feature things, like people.
• 21:31
  Casey Fatchett: Everybody was like, oh, I want to be one of those and they don't want to take the time.
• 21:35
  Casey Fatchett: I'm like where's the?
• 21:37
  Casey Fatchett: You know, like I'm not gonna say how old I am, but like awards for consistency over a long period of time, like that's the?
• 21:46
  Casey Fatchett: You know, like that's something I think would be equally, as you know, celebratory, as celebrated, as you know, like oh, you're been really awesome for two years and you're a rising star, um, but it's not sexy.
• 22:03
  Casey Fatchett: It's just not sexy.
• 22:06
  Matt Jacob: It doesn't sell.
• 22:07
  Matt Jacob: No, and the biggest problem with that is the definition of, of people's you mentioned on 30s.
• 22:13
  Matt Jacob: It is, it is pervasive in that generation and I don't want to be generationist if that's the word, but yeah, it's the definition of success.
• 22:22
  Matt Jacob: Usually, in my experience now talking to so many of these people falls in one of two categories One is having hundreds of thousands of followers on social media and the other one is making six figure income like ASAP.
• 22:36
  Matt Jacob: Right, those are the two definitions of success.
• 22:39
  Matt Jacob: As a, as a creator, photographer, film, whatever, whatever kind of visual arts medium you want to pick and you know there's a whole host of issues with that.
• 22:51
  Matt Jacob: Right, where is the definition of success that says I just the pursuit of this over over many, many years.
• 22:59
  Matt Jacob: I want to perfect the craft.
• 23:01
  Matt Jacob: Whatever comes of that, great, like, like, wow, if that brings me six figures income, wonderful, if people recognize the quality of my work and want to pay for that, fantastic.
• 23:10
  Matt Jacob: But again, it's the intent behind that.
• 23:12
  Matt Jacob: There's 10 000 hours.
• 23:13
  Matt Jacob: That's a cliche, but it's fucking true, right, you, you, why?
• 23:18
  Matt Jacob: Why are people not going into it?
• 23:20
  Matt Jacob: Wanting to master it?
• 23:21
  Matt Jacob: Like to?
• 23:22
  Matt Jacob: To master anything, you have to put the time in, you have to be patient, anything, you have to put the time in.
• 23:25
  Matt Jacob: You have to be patient and consistent.
• 23:26
  Matt Jacob: You have to have the patience to be consistent right, so you can look back on the body of work and go okay, well, I evolved over time.
• 23:33
  Matt Jacob: I impacted a lot of people's lives.
• 23:35
  Matt Jacob: I hopefully inspired other people and in the meantime I, you know, earned myself an income through just hard work, dedication, learning all the time and hopefully just providing a, you know, a near perfect or a good enough output that I am.
• 23:52
  Matt Jacob: I'm happy with, whatever anyone else thinks, however many followers I've got Right.
• 23:56
  Matt Jacob: So I think this intent is completely misplaced these days and it's driven by the face that people put on it, the face that people want to want other people to see them for right so yeah, I know intent is a big part of your kind of it is.
• 24:13
  Casey Fatchett: I mean, I think there's that that you know, like, there's this facade that people put up, like because they're just looking for, um, they're looking for likes and shares and comments and followers.
• 24:25
  Casey Fatchett: And you know, I've always been someone who focuses on the quality of connections as opposed to the quantity of things.
• 24:35
  Casey Fatchett: And yeah, it's sort of this like rush dig to, like you said, got to get to six figures or a hundred thousand followers or whatever the, the goal is, um, and there's little thought about putting the work into the craft of what you're doing.
• 24:57
  Casey Fatchett: And there's a lot of this like, oh, what were your settings?
• 25:00
  Casey Fatchett: What gear did you use?
• 25:02
  Casey Fatchett: Like, like, thinking I can replicate this photo.
• 25:04
  Casey Fatchett: I want to.
• 25:06
  Casey Fatchett: I want to replicate what, the, what you did in this photo.
• 25:08
  Casey Fatchett: Just all I need to know where the settings and the gear that you used and I can make that picture.
• 25:15
  Casey Fatchett: No, you know, you think I will.
• 25:18
  Casey Fatchett: This is the first piece of advice I'd give to anybody who wants to get into photography is learn your fundamentals, learn the exposure triangle.
• 25:25
  Casey Fatchett: Man, once you nail the exposure triangle, life gets way easier.
• 25:30
  Casey Fatchett: Uh, and that's again how, like the shooting film, live bands, you learn the exposure.
• 25:39
  Casey Fatchett: Like, I've got two camera bodies.
• 25:40
  Casey Fatchett: I had two camera bodies at that point.
• 25:42
  Casey Fatchett: You can't switch ISO, you can't switcho, you can't switch, it's in, it's locked in the camera and you know you have a limited array of things and you have to learn like, okay, let's just got real bright.
• 25:53
  Casey Fatchett: I gotta change my settings real fast, uh, and adjust to to all of that.
• 25:59
  Casey Fatchett: But, yeah, intention is something I find being lost as well.
• 26:04
  Casey Fatchett: To trend, it's this like in the sort of uh, the environment of you know, instagram, reels and tiktok, and like trending things on social media, people are going for trends to get more exposure in the algorithm, so they'll reach more people, so they'll get more likes and they'll get more comments and they'll get more followers, and you know the cycle continues instead of saying, like this is the type of image or art or whatever it is that I want to make in finding something.
• 26:40
  Casey Fatchett: And you know, if you're constantly imitating other people, you're not creating something for yourself.
• 26:48
  Casey Fatchett: There's also, when it comes to like we've talked about off recording, like intention is uh is important for me because you'll see these trends Like uh, there's the blurry photo trend that was like last year.
• 27:04
  Casey Fatchett: It kind of blew up for a while and I think it's still kind of going on.
• 27:07
  Casey Fatchett: Um, I don't know if you've seen this, uh, but it's like totally out of focus images and I I was thinking about it, going like why is this a thing?
• 27:18
  Casey Fatchett: And you know, I was asking questions and younger, younger, millennial and Gen Z and alpha, uh, folks were saying like well, it's just sort of nostalgic for, like you know, when you know, like, looking at old pictures, you know film from like film, you know, like whether in the out of focus, I was like you're being nostalgic for something that didn't exist.
• 27:45
  Casey Fatchett: It's not like people were going like I want to shoot this out of focus.
• 27:48
  Casey Fatchett: You know it's that you didn't have an auto focus and you know you didn't couldn't change your film speed and like there's things that went into it and like the yes, sometimes it didn't come out and I am like I'm saying the emotional weight of something is more important than the technical perfection of it.
• 28:08
  Casey Fatchett: So if something's a little bit out of focus, that's fine with me, but it's that you were more concerned, like your intent was on capturing something else and not like my intent is not.
• 28:22
  Casey Fatchett: I'm just going to take a out of focus picture, because out of focus is trending right now and that's going to get me attention on social media.
• 28:30
  Casey Fatchett: It's you know, I, my intent is to capture what is happening here and you know that might mean that some there's some motion blur or that you know I can't track it as fast as possible to have it be sharply in focus.
• 28:46
  Casey Fatchett: I find that that's less important than getting the shot.
• 28:54
  Casey Fatchett: That's my intent is to get the photo.
• 28:59
  Casey Fatchett: But when your intent becomes to just follow a trend, like I said, you're just imitating other people and you're not like thinking about what you want to create, what it is inside of you as an artist, what is your voice?
• 29:14
  Casey Fatchett: That you're, what are you trying to say about what you're creating?
• 29:20
  Casey Fatchett: Um, I think you lose a lot of that to trends.
• 29:25
  Casey Fatchett: Um, my wife has always said that I am anti-trend to the point of, uh, being detrimental to my career.
• 29:32
  Casey Fatchett: Um, but I would say that's not true because I, I would, I, I will say one of the things about that I like most about my work is that it's timeless.
• 29:41
  Casey Fatchett: There's no point where you're looking at it going like, oh, that's definitely from 2010, or that's definitely from 2005 or 2018 or whatever, because this was such a big trend at that point you can go back and I can post photos that I took 15, 18 years ago and people will still think that I took it, you know, last month, because, apart from some fashion, uh, differences, you know that it's it's, the look is very timeless I think that's important for for photographers to.
• 30:21
  Matt Jacob: I don't, it is for me.
• 30:23
  Matt Jacob: I think in 10 years time, you know all of these people that post because it's chasing a trend, and the trend could be social media, right, we don't know where social media is going in the next five, 10 years.
• 30:38
  Matt Jacob: I doubt it's going to look like it does today, that's for sure, right?
• 30:43
  Matt Jacob: So you know, people chasing those trends are always going to be chasing the trends.
• 30:47
  Matt Jacob: They're always going to be chasing the algorithm and we all, we all fall foul to it in some respect.
• 30:52
  Matt Jacob: We you and I both use instagram and we use it for very specific purposes.
• 30:55
  Matt Jacob: But the difference is the intent, right?
• 30:57
  Matt Jacob: What are we using as a tool for?
• 30:59
  Matt Jacob: And we're certainly not creating photos to get the most amount of reach on Instagram or whatever TikTok or whatever stupid platform it is.
• 31:08
  Matt Jacob: So I think I'm fairly confident that those people will be left behind, and I think it's really important.
• 31:16
  Matt Jacob: If you want to, I just did a video about this, released it last night, and it was a bit of a hate on the influencer, content creator kind of generation, which is kind of what we're talking about.
• 31:26
  Matt Jacob: You know, people who call themselves artists, who call themselves this, they label themselves that and they can take a photo that looks like everyone else's because it's cool and it's trendy.
• 31:38
  Matt Jacob: They're not going to last.
• 31:40
  Matt Jacob: Going to last and I think the true, the true artists and the real, the real photographers not only do it in the dark, do it in behind whatever facade these kind of uh, these platforms create.
• 31:55
  Matt Jacob: Um, they do it.
• 31:57
  Matt Jacob: They do it behind closed doors.
• 31:59
  Matt Jacob: They don't give a fuck what other people think or say.
• 32:02
  Matt Jacob: They don't have to do it for ego.
• 32:02
  Matt Jacob: They don't have to do it for ego, they don't have to do it for status.
• 32:04
  Matt Jacob: But, more importantly, they do it like you do it, you know, they do it like I'm trying to do it, and do it over numerous years, with cohesiveness, with consistency, with a story behind it, with experience behind it, and so that I can look back on my body of work and hopefully other people can look back on my body of work in 10, 20, 30 years time and see a consistent style, a consistent story, a cohesive kind of nature of work and almost like a legacy.
• 32:35
  Matt Jacob: Right, that's a bit of a cliche, but you know, look back and go.
• 32:38
  Matt Jacob: Well, this is what I contributed to the world and I guarantee, like those people that you're talking about, they won't be able to do that, what you're going to look back on your IG page in 10 years time and go, wow, look at this slow shutter photo I took.
• 32:51
  Matt Jacob: There is a place for that.
• 32:53
  Matt Jacob: I love, I love all types of photography and those kinds of images are cool, and even I've done stuff like that before I've posted them.
• 33:01
  Matt Jacob: But I enjoy experimenting, playing around with different techniques and, like you said, sometimes I'm just a shit photographer and I get something like that by accident.
• 33:10
  Matt Jacob: Well, actually, that's quite cool, yeah, but that's fine, like so I, you know, I, yeah, I don't know, I don't know what you think about it.
• 33:17
  Matt Jacob: I mean, it all comes down to our the abundance that we have today.
• 33:22
  Matt Jacob: You know, everyone has a camera, right, and so this is both a good thing and a bad thing.
• 33:28
  Matt Jacob: The negative side of it is people aren't that creative.
• 33:32
  Matt Jacob: You know, not everyone is really creative.
• 33:34
  Matt Jacob: So not everyone has this in a, and I'm one of those guys.
• 33:38
  Matt Jacob: I have to work hard at it.
• 33:40
  Matt Jacob: I have to sit down and have a kind of focus session about okay, what, what do I want to do?
• 33:46
  Matt Jacob: What do I want to say?
• 33:47
  Matt Jacob: What's my next project?
• 33:49
  Matt Jacob: How am I going to create things around that?
• 33:51
  Matt Jacob: Some people and I've met just they just exude that creativeness, right, they're just, they've just got it in their blood.
• 33:59
  Matt Jacob: Some people just want to kind of fit into, just fit into something, right, and they have the fear of being left behind because now that they've they've had this thing thrust into them, it's like, oh well, yeah, I see all these other people as kind of social media photographers and I want to do that and it's easy because I just buy a digital camera, get it all done for me, stick it in auto mode and watch a YouTube video for 10 minutes and post chase the algorithm.
• 34:27
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, now I'm an expert, it's like, okay, but don't call yourself an artist or a photographer.
• 34:32
  Matt Jacob: You're not, you're just a digital image poster, I guess I.
• 34:35
  Matt Jacob: Just the problem is, everyone has it, and so the fear of getting left behind means that they will chase these trends and they want to fit in, and then they don't.
• 34:44
  Matt Jacob: They're not brave enough to do something themselves and to put themselves out there like as an authentic version of themselves.
• 34:53
  Matt Jacob: Go right, this is me.
• 34:54
  Casey Fatchett: you either like it or you don't yeah, I think there's uh, listen, it's not generationally like.
• 35:02
  Casey Fatchett: There are people my age who are still chasing the algorithm and trying to get likes and follows and will do anything to increase that reach instead of being and it's like to thine own self be true.
• 35:20
  Casey Fatchett: It's like, if you need to be and you had mentioned, like you know, having a cohesive style and whatever like I don't want people who are listening to this to think that you have to start knowing exactly what your style is.
• 35:33
  Casey Fatchett: You don't have to.
• 35:35
  Casey Fatchett: And it's not like you can't evolve over time.
• 35:37
  Casey Fatchett: It's not that it can't change, you're not.
• 35:41
  Casey Fatchett: You know you're not failing if you decide like, oh, I want to go in a different direction.
• 35:49
  Casey Fatchett: We all grow.
• 35:50
  Casey Fatchett: Artists grow over time and change.
• 35:55
  Casey Fatchett: Look at Picasso he learned the techniques well before he ever, you know, decided to.
• 36:03
  Casey Fatchett: You know, like, I'm going to do something completely different in at a solid basis and all of the lots of different painting techniques, and I think that that's I would recommend.
• 36:19
  Casey Fatchett: Like people get in there like, dip your toes and things, do different stuff and kind of like find, be willing, be courageous enough to make mistakes, because if you never make mistakes, you're not taking chances, you're not doing anything original.
• 36:38
  Casey Fatchett: You're never going to make anything original If you know, like all you're doing is imitating what other people do.
• 36:45
  Casey Fatchett: Um, so if you're just in it for attention and you know getting you want to be, you know internet famous, for you know whatever that means, then you know that's, that's, you know, okay, uh, but like you said, it's like in the long run you're gonna, you're gonna be remembered and have a legacy and like there's a part of me, like for a while, like I was, I was struggling emotion, not emotionally, mentally, like with my like anxiety about like legacy, like I guess, just as, uh, you know, do I need to do something different?
• 37:28
  Casey Fatchett: do I need to um, like, uh, what impact have I had?
• 37:33
  Casey Fatchett: And my wife was like you have impacted, like thousands of people at their, you know, like, the weddings, weddings, like these photos of people with family members that you know past, soon afterwards, or whatever there's like, the impact that those images have is just a spider web you know out into the world and you know that that is an impact, that is a that is a legacy of you know, like, and I I opened my eyes to that and I was, you know, far more comfortable in my own skin and my own thoughts about my work because of that.
• 38:17
  Casey Fatchett: You know, it's not like you don't ever have a crisis of faith.
• 38:23
  Casey Fatchett: You know, if you do this for a long time and I don't want people to think that that's that you're going to jump into it and like you're going to be, like you're going to do everything exactly right and get a, you know, internship with somebody else and like, and that somehow everything's always going to fall into place it's not.
• 38:40
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, there's, there's going to be ups and downs, but you have to be willing to make those mistakes instead of just like chasing trends.
• 38:51
  Casey Fatchett: Um, yeah, I bad for people who do that.
• 38:58
  Casey Fatchett: I've also been around long enough that I've seen all of these iterations of how people show their work.
• 39:07
  Casey Fatchett: When I started, everybody had a physically printed portfolio.
• 39:12
  Casey Fatchett: You had a book that you would show people in person.
• 39:15
  Casey Fatchett: And then websites became a thing and they weren't great.
• 39:20
  Casey Fatchett: The original, the first websites, could not handle images, especially not video.
• 39:27
  Casey Fatchett: So, like you kind of like, gave people a sense like hey, I've been doing this and I'm kind of good at it.
• 39:33
  Casey Fatchett: Here's a couple.
• 39:34
  Casey Fatchett: Here's a couple of photos.
• 39:35
  Casey Fatchett: Come see me in person and see the print.
• 39:37
  Casey Fatchett: Then broadband came in and we were able to put more higher quality images out there.
• 39:48
  Casey Fatchett: And then social media comes into play.
• 39:51
  Casey Fatchett: There's this just constant barrage of visual media and it's interesting.
• 40:00
  Casey Fatchett: There's one of the big pitfalls I see people falling into I think it plays in the connects to what we're just saying is that there's this feeling that you need to be constantly creating content.
• 40:15
  Casey Fatchett: There's just like I had to be posting three times a week and I just got off the phone with Meta and I don't know if you've seen all these posts on like I just got off the phone with.
• 40:27
  Casey Fatchett: Meta, and this is what they said.
• 40:29
  Matt Jacob: We need to be doing.
• 40:30
  Matt Jacob: It's just basically like calling up customer service or just getting on chat.
• 40:34
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, also, what do you?
• 40:36
  Casey Fatchett: think they're going to say?
• 40:37
  Casey Fatchett: What do you think that is going to say?
• 40:39
  Matt Jacob: They're going to say keep posting.
• 40:42
  Casey Fatchett: Keep creating content on our platform.
• 40:45
  Matt Jacob: But that's why people do keep posting, because they know that if they stop posting, they will.
• 40:50
  Matt Jacob: If you don't post for a couple of weeks, you're just not gonna have the same traction.
• 40:56
  Matt Jacob: You know that the whole, the whole system is built purposefully for people to use, right?
• 41:02
  Matt Jacob: So, uh, you know, and this is the fear, is that the, the, the intent changes, the intent set and we're talking I'm talking just specifically photography here like we talk about other social media uses all day long.
• 41:14
  Matt Jacob: You know, know, there's some, there are some great uses of social media.
• 41:17
  Matt Jacob: I'm not completely and I never do it's.
• 41:20
  Matt Jacob: You know, we all use social media, but it's how you use it.
• 41:23
  Matt Jacob: I think as photographers, it's the intent can change so quickly behind.
• 41:30
  Matt Jacob: I would like to share my work with people because I put a lot of work into it.
• 41:35
  Matt Jacob: Maybe I want some feedback or some constructive criticism.
• 41:38
  Matt Jacob: Maybe this is my way to just share things with the world.
• 41:40
  Matt Jacob: Right, quickly, that becomes okay.
• 41:43
  Matt Jacob: Well, I need more people to see my work.
• 41:45
  Matt Jacob: Okay, then that becomes well, I need to do anything to get more people to do my work.
• 41:49
  Matt Jacob: Therefore, I'm just going to post whatever the content might be, and I might be rushing an edit.
• 41:54
  Matt Jacob: I might be rushing, I might be doing photos I don't really want to do just so I can get content.
• 41:59
  Matt Jacob: I might now be doing some shit reels that don't really promote anything and that just detract from the whole artistry I'm trying to create.
• 42:07
  Matt Jacob: And you know, before you know it, you are just a sellout.
• 42:10
  Matt Jacob: Essentially.
• 42:11
  Matt Jacob: So the is, and I don't blame the individuals, I blame the system, I blame these big platforms, um, albeit, we've kind of created these platforms, so I don't know.
• 42:24
  Matt Jacob: I I think that the, the intent is everything, and I totally agree with you, of course.
• 42:29
  Matt Jacob: Uh, just to go back to our point a few minutes ago, everyone should I'm, I still try different styles, right, I'm just I love photography, so I want to try everything um it.
• 42:40
  Matt Jacob: But again, there's the reason to do that once you start putting your work out there, you have to be sure about an identity of some sorts, and that identity really should and has to be authentic.
• 42:53
  Matt Jacob: So if it's not authentic, then you will be found out, either by yourself or by other people, and that is a fact, and it might take three months, it might take 30 years, but you will be caught out, and not caught out like I'm in trouble, it's just your reputation will will change you.
• 43:09
  Matt Jacob: You.
• 43:10
  Matt Jacob: You know you.
• 43:10
  Matt Jacob: Things will happen and you'll start questioning yourself about am I gonna, am I doing this right?
• 43:13
  Matt Jacob: What you?
• 43:13
  Matt Jacob: Things will happen and you'll start questioning yourself about am I gonna, am I doing this right?
• 43:16
  Matt Jacob: What do I want to do?
• 43:17
  Matt Jacob: You'll become confused, you'll lack clarity and it's it's just not a good, it's not just conducive to a good outcome.
• 43:25
  Casey Fatchett: It's not beneficial I've seen, I've, I mean I'm I'm not gonna name the names because there's a few of them and like it's not like one in particular, but but I've seen several well-known photographers.
• 43:37
  Casey Fatchett: Their entire world came crashing down because they got caught plagiarizing other people's stuff on social media.
• 43:51
  Casey Fatchett: Like like, completely lifting somebody else's captions, like in just like in postman music, they were funny or whatever.
• 44:01
  Casey Fatchett: Like, here's my little jokey thing that I said that you know, but now I'm, I've got 50,000 or a hundred thousand followers, so now a whole bunch of other people are going to see it Like, and they found that, like the people, people start to notice after a while.
• 44:14
  Casey Fatchett: They're like wait, this is the exact like, this is what somebody else said like two weeks before.
• 44:21
  Casey Fatchett: And now, like you just like copying and pasting other people's tweets and you know, like in Instagram captions and stuff, just to like, keep up and try to like, try to stay on top all the time and you lose.
• 44:36
  Casey Fatchett: What got you there in the first place, probably, um, and I mean, if it was up to me, I mean, like nerdy photographer is just my place to like, joke about photography a lot of the time and I just like, yeah, having fun, and it's like I want to make people laugh.
• 44:49
  Casey Fatchett: And it's not about, like, if people get the joke and they find one great.
• 44:53
  Casey Fatchett: If they don't, whatever, I don't care.
• 44:56
  Casey Fatchett: Like this is like you know, they used to do stand-up man.
• 44:59
  Casey Fatchett: That's like if it, if it doesn't land, it doesn't land, you just kind of move on to the next thing.
• 45:04
  Casey Fatchett: Um, and that's what I try to take that into account with my like my photography socials as well is that you know, like sometimes the best the the photo you're like this is amazing.
• 45:19
  Casey Fatchett: This is a fantastic shot.
• 45:21
  Casey Fatchett: I'm going to craft the best caption ever, and then you send it out there and like five people see it and that's like.
• 45:29
  Casey Fatchett: You're like oh God, here's the thing.
• 45:33
  Casey Fatchett: The thing about like.
• 45:34
  Casey Fatchett: I can't remember when this was a while ago, but there was a thing that said like.
• 45:39
  Casey Fatchett: You know, 99% of Facebook or Instagram hosts don't get more than five likes 99%.
• 45:48
  Matt Jacob: Oh, wow.
• 45:49
  Casey Fatchett: Don't get more than five likes.
• 45:50
  Casey Fatchett: Don't get more than five likes.
• 45:57
  Casey Fatchett: Um, and these, like, I've seen it happen over and over again with social media platforms where it's like, there's this big like, everybody's getting a lot of engagement and then suddenly they throttle it.
• 46:05
  Casey Fatchett: They throttle the engagement.
• 46:07
  Casey Fatchett: So, like, try to get you to boost stuff.
• 46:09
  Casey Fatchett: It's a thing on tiktok yeah, like, oh, you know, because that's how they make money.
• 46:13
  Casey Fatchett: The folks like you, you are the con, you are creating the content, you're the product.
• 46:19
  Casey Fatchett: And it's like on instagram when people get so mad because like or you know, was facebook and now people have written off facebook.
• 46:27
  Casey Fatchett: But, um, if you're on instagram, like, I have 10,000 followers, but only 200 of them ever see my posts.
• 46:35
  Casey Fatchett: Like, yeah, they want you to pay to boost your post so that your people who follow you see it.
• 46:41
  Casey Fatchett: Um, yeah, like, I don't know, I I've.
• 46:47
  Casey Fatchett: I try not to put too much faith in those sorts of things, those sorts of interactions, because, like, you know, know, like, they can take it away whenever they feel like it.
• 46:58
  Casey Fatchett: They can, they can throttle what engagement you get.
• 47:02
  Casey Fatchett: They can change the algorithm like, you don't want to be a, I don't want to be a slave to the algorithm.
• 47:07
  Casey Fatchett: I'm going to be consistent and post the things on you.
• 47:11
  Casey Fatchett: You know my different platforms that I think are appropriate for that platform If it.
• 47:17
  Casey Fatchett: If it hits, it hits.
• 47:18
  Casey Fatchett: If not, okay.
• 47:20
  Casey Fatchett: Usually most of the time for me, instagram for my like photography business is a place for people to go and like see my most recent stuff.
• 47:28
  Casey Fatchett: They've gone to my website and I say like hey, go over and you want to see my most recent stuff?
• 47:33
  Casey Fatchett: Head over to instagram.
• 47:34
  Casey Fatchett: Um, that's the most up-to-date things.
• 47:38
  Matt Jacob: So one thing I'm starting to find instagram extremely useful for is um is broadcast broadcast lists, um subscription list, newsletter.
• 47:49
  Matt Jacob: You know, just a real audience, and I get exactly what you're saying.
• 47:53
  Matt Jacob: But think about it like this If you put a post on and you get five likes, imagine sharing those photos or that photo in a room with five people.
• 48:03
  Matt Jacob: Right, it's, I fucking love that, right.
• 48:07
  Matt Jacob: I would be grateful to have five people actually sit here and look, even for 10 minutes.
• 48:12
  Matt Jacob: Look at some of my photos.
• 48:13
  Matt Jacob: Brilliant.
• 48:15
  Matt Jacob: But we don't think about it like that.
• 48:17
  Matt Jacob: We just think about it purely as digits or robots or whatever you know.
• 48:21
  Matt Jacob: But people, if five likes means people have seen that photo, they've comprehended that photo and they've gone, I really like that.
• 48:28
  Matt Jacob: There you go, and then a comment is kind of the next day.
• 48:31
  Matt Jacob: So I mean, people just don't think like that really.
• 48:34
  Matt Jacob: But I think, um, of course I agree with you in the the.
• 48:38
  Matt Jacob: You are powerless Once.
• 48:40
  Matt Jacob: Once you put those photos on.
• 48:42
  Matt Jacob: If we're just talking photos, let's put those photos on you.
• 48:44
  Matt Jacob: It's hit and miss and I think most photographers now realize.
• 48:48
  Matt Jacob: So you understand that system, you can make peace with it.
• 48:51
  Matt Jacob: It fine, this is.
• 48:52
  Matt Jacob: This is again.
• 48:53
  Matt Jacob: It's the intense like I'm going to put this photo on because I'm going to have it as part of my portfolio or something, some kind of grid where people can come on to and just see my most recent work, you know yeah, which is a great use of it.
• 49:06
  Matt Jacob: It's where you get, like a broadcast list or, if you want, um, an audience, a real audience.
• 49:11
  Matt Jacob: That's where it can be quite good, because you can directly reach people.
• 49:15
  Matt Jacob: People have a clear choice as to whether they're going to be part of that list or not.
• 49:19
  Matt Jacob: You can share, you can just talk to them, right.
• 49:21
  Matt Jacob: It's a big DM group.
• 49:22
  Matt Jacob: I find that really really great.
• 49:24
  Matt Jacob: It's like having a big WhatsApp group or your email list.
• 49:27
  Matt Jacob: So that's really where the audience connection can come from in the digital space, right.
• 49:35
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, where the audience connection can come from in the digital space, right, yeah, and I think that it's like it wants you.
• 49:38
  Casey Fatchett: It's a lot healthier mentally to get to that place where you're like, oh, this is not something I can just, you know, expect to like, you know, get consistently, you know, a thousand likes or whatever it is like you like.
• 49:58
  Casey Fatchett: I've seen people who have 50, 100 000 followers on instagram, like, post stuff and it's like it only got like 150 likes.
• 50:07
  Casey Fatchett: I'm like what can I tell you?
• 50:10
  Casey Fatchett: Like it, like don't put the, don't put yourself in, like you're saying they, it's the abstractness of nothing like, oh, 150 people saw that and and liked it, it really enjoyed it, or whatever.
• 50:23
  Casey Fatchett: They just like.
• 50:25
  Casey Fatchett: The abstraction has become like, oh, it's gotta be.
• 50:27
  Casey Fatchett: You know, a certain percentage of my followers and you know of my followers and you know it's got to be this, not like oh, I connected with 150 people like honestly, like I.
• 50:37
  Casey Fatchett: The thing that gets me is as, as a professional photographer, if you were using that to as an extension of your business, you should stop, like, trying to make everybody like you yeah the best marketing advice I ever got was you shouldn't be trying to get the.
• 50:56
  Casey Fatchett: Here's always the people.
• 50:56
  Casey Fatchett: You only need two percent of the crowd or whatever to you know.
• 51:00
  Casey Fatchett: Have a successful business.
• 51:01
  Casey Fatchett: So people like you only need two percent of people like buying your product.
• 51:05
  Casey Fatchett: And but the best advice I ever got as far as marketing was you shouldn't be trying to get two percent of the hundred percent.
• 51:12
  Casey Fatchett: You should be trying to to get two percent of the hundred percent.
• 51:14
  Casey Fatchett: You should be trying to get a hundred percent of the two percent right that that's the thing you need to like aim at.
• 51:21
  Casey Fatchett: So, when you start thinking about like oh, I need to like get everybody who's following me to like love what I do and like if they don't, then I'm going to be depressed.
• 51:30
  Casey Fatchett: Like think about who's.
• 51:31
  Casey Fatchett: How many people do you need to like buy your product?
• 51:34
  Casey Fatchett: You don't need like every single person who sees the thing to you know become a buyer.
• 51:41
  Casey Fatchett: You need, you know it, even a small group of people.
• 51:46
  Casey Fatchett: Well, you can.
• 51:47
  Casey Fatchett: You can run a very successful business.
• 51:49
  Casey Fatchett: Uh, so that's like you know like trying to get out of the mindset of like I need a certain percentage of my followership to you know, love every single thing that I do.
• 52:00
  Casey Fatchett: Um can be very healthy for you to like understand that that's not going to be helpful speaking of health, how, how do you see mental health in photography?
• 52:13
  Matt Jacob: I mean mean, I think one thing is completely underrated is the value of well, I guess, the detriment of individuality.
• 52:21
  Matt Jacob: I mean, it's such an individual pursuit A lot of the time you're often on your own, you're the only one that's pressing that shutter button at that time, and the responsibility, especially if you're leading a team of assistants and stuff.
• 52:32
  Matt Jacob: But generally speaking, you are.
• 52:33
  Matt Jacob: You know you're leading a team of assistants and stuff, but generally speaking, you are.
• 52:34
  Matt Jacob: You know you're by yourself.
• 52:36
  Matt Jacob: You're forging this path through the industry on your own most of the time.
• 52:41
  Matt Jacob: How have you dealt with that over you know, the few decades that you've been in it and talk to us a little bit about your ups and downs and in terms of mental health uh, yeah, I, uh, I mean I, it could be very solitary and it could be a very solitary endeavor.
• 53:01
  Casey Fatchett: Um, I think that I mean for me, when I started out, I was all probably attention deficit, hyper focused, uh, on, you know, like job, and I would stay up until like two or 3 AM editing.
• 53:19
  Casey Fatchett: You know, I was always like, oh, I got to do the.
• 53:23
  Casey Fatchett: You know, I got to perfect the website and I got to do like this thing and, like, I got to, you know, there was always a job to do and I didn't balance work-life balance.
• 53:33
  Casey Fatchett: Um, it's true, even when you're running your own business, you have to find your ways to step away from the work.
• 53:41
  Casey Fatchett: Um, I found myself getting burnt out like every, you know I said like every five years it was like, yeah, I just feel like, oh man, what am I doing?
• 53:54
  Casey Fatchett: What's going on?
• 53:55
  Casey Fatchett: And now I've scheduled it with myself that I need to have check-ins and say how are you feeling?
• 54:04
  Casey Fatchett: What's going on?
• 54:05
  Casey Fatchett: How do you feel about your work?
• 54:07
  Casey Fatchett: How do you feel about your work, what you're actually putting out there, how do you feel about the business side of it?
• 54:14
  Casey Fatchett: Like, what's going on?
• 54:15
  Casey Fatchett: Like, do I need to delegate something?
• 54:17
  Casey Fatchett: Because that's the thing that I am terrible.
• 54:19
  Casey Fatchett: I am fucking awful at delegating anything, because it's like I have a perfectionist and like nothing can be done to my standard.
• 54:28
  Casey Fatchett: But you know, in the late teens I was getting so wound up about the stuff.
• 54:38
  Casey Fatchett: I had a couple of panic attacks.
• 54:39
  Casey Fatchett: Um, I was so anxious about, like everything that was going on with the business I was getting ready for, uh, a wedding.
• 54:50
  Casey Fatchett: I had two weddings in a row.
• 54:51
  Casey Fatchett: I had one Friday night and one Saturday, and it was Thursday night and I was like getting my equipment together for the next day on Thursday, and a piece of equipment broke and I just like I started weeping uncontrollably.
• 55:06
  Casey Fatchett: Um, and my wife was like, are you having a heart attack?
• 55:10
  Casey Fatchett: Um, cause I was breathing hurt and I was like, nope, I think this is, I'm pretty sure this is a panic attack.
• 55:15
  Casey Fatchett: Um, and you know I wasn't gonna help.
• 55:20
  Casey Fatchett: Uh, I talked to my doctor.
• 55:22
  Casey Fatchett: Uh, you know I talked to a therapist.
• 55:24
  Casey Fatchett: Uh, you know I I know that that can seem like a daunting task for anybody out there if you're having those sorts of issues, but like for me it, you know that was, it was necessary.
• 55:36
  Casey Fatchett: Um, because I was just too caught up in the race and like to to stop and think about myself and what I needed, and since then it's taken a lot of work.
• 55:52
  Casey Fatchett: I've worked very hard at it.
• 55:54
  Casey Fatchett: Uh, when there have been other ups and downs that went through, like in 2020, both my parents passed away, uh, from cancer within two weeks of each other and, um, yeah, and then I was their executor.
• 56:09
  Casey Fatchett: So I spent like two years like trying to like figure there's a lot of pressure on top of like running the business and dealing with the pandemic and then in grieving and then all this other stuff on top of that.
• 56:21
  Casey Fatchett: So, like it was good to have at that point I had like some base like of how to deal with the stress, um, which for me, was, you know, taking a break, taking like scheduling breaks.
• 56:36
  Casey Fatchett: Um, I think that it's one thing, especially when you're young in this business, in photography, like we said, it's very solitary first of all, but it's very easy to get caught up and just spend like all of your time working um, and I see it with like younger photographers, that that I know and I'll be like, oh, I was up until like 3 30 editing this shoot because I was just so excited about it.
• 57:02
  Casey Fatchett: I'm like and you need to go to bed, you need to go to bed at a reasonable time, like if you don't sleep.
• 57:09
  Casey Fatchett: That is like one of the biggest things to like for your mental health is is getting regular sleep and I'm not saying you absolutely have to get eight hours a night even though you should but like getting consistent sleep is like one of the best things you can do for your mental health.
• 57:28
  Casey Fatchett: Um, and it was also like for me.
• 57:32
  Casey Fatchett: I have a very active dog, um, so I would schedule like times during the day, like this is what I'm going to take the dog for a walk.
• 57:40
  Casey Fatchett: This is what I'm going to do training with the dog.
• 57:43
  Casey Fatchett: Like it's not a long period of time.
• 57:44
  Casey Fatchett: Like I'm going to schedule a time where I get up from my desk and I am not doing work for 10 minutes.
• 57:51
  Casey Fatchett: I'm just going to train my dog.
• 57:53
  Casey Fatchett: We're going to do stuff and it's fun for me because I love playing with my dog.
• 57:57
  Casey Fatchett: Um, dog loves it.
• 57:59
  Casey Fatchett: Like, but I'm stepping away from the work.
• 58:01
  Casey Fatchett: Um.
• 58:03
  Casey Fatchett: The other thing that really helped was setting specific end times for when clients can contact me and for when I am going to stop doing work.
• 58:12
  Casey Fatchett: Um and having limits.
• 58:16
  Casey Fatchett: I always tell, because you know Weddings can be Very emotional.
• 58:21
  Casey Fatchett: There can be a lot of like you know, last minute stuff.
• 58:23
  Casey Fatchett: I always tell people like, the week of the wedding you can call me whenever, anytime, night or day, you can call me.
• 58:33
  Casey Fatchett: But apart from that, after 6.30 at night I'm not answering the phone.
• 58:40
  Casey Fatchett: It's going to go to voicemail.
• 58:43
  Casey Fatchett: I'm going to pick it up at 8 o'clock in the morning and I will get that.
• 58:50
  Casey Fatchett: I'm not going to chase it, because I used to have people calling me at 11 o'clock at night and I'd be like, yeah, I'm not going to chase it, because I used to have people calling me at 11 o'clock at night and I'd be like why are you calling me?
• 58:57
  Casey Fatchett: Like I'm not going to do this, like right now, I'm not going to like you know they're like oh well, you know the wedding was six months away and I'm like, okay, I'm not falling into this trap, I'm not.
• 59:11
  Casey Fatchett: So that was about setting boundaries with clients.
• 59:13
  Casey Fatchett: But you need, I'm not falling into this trap.
• 59:14
  Casey Fatchett: That was about setting boundaries with clients.
• 59:15
  Casey Fatchett: You need to set boundaries yourself as well.
• 59:16
  Casey Fatchett: I'm not going to stay up Sometimes.
• 59:18
  Casey Fatchett: Yes, you need to stay up, get the editing done.
• 59:20
  Casey Fatchett: You might have a deadline, whatever.
• 59:21
  Casey Fatchett: It happens occasionally, but you shouldn't consistently be up until 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock in the morning.
• 59:27
  Casey Fatchett: It's not good for you.
• 59:32
  Casey Fatchett: It's not good for you.
• 59:33
  Casey Fatchett: You need to set boundaries for yourself, otherwise you burn out.
• 59:38
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, yeah, I mean I get the going back to what you originally said about delegation and being professional Again, because it's a visual art form and you have your brain in those photos, right, or how those photos are delivered or how they're managed or how a client's managed or whatever it is.
• 59:58
  Matt Jacob: It's your name on the line and it's so difficult as you have to put your entrepreneur hat on, not your artist hat on right, whereas you have to be able, if you're going to scale it a bit right and you're not going to get burnt out.
• 1:00:12
  Matt Jacob: It's very, very difficult and there's no easy way to just do it and there's no course in really learning how to do it, because everyone's different and whoever you might be delegating to is different, with different skill sets, different experiences, and it's just, again, it's a human relationship that somehow you have to garner if you're delegating to people.
• 1:00:30
  Matt Jacob: But, yeah, I think what hearing you talk about that and having empathy, because I've kind of been there myself as well and as long as I think you're able to do two things or learn from, learn from your experiences, what's happening and sounds like you did perfectly and I kind of went through something similar and, you know, got help, was willing to kind of put my ego aside, and I didn't for many years.
• 1:01:00
  Matt Jacob: No, I could do this.
• 1:01:00
  Matt Jacob: You know I'm.
• 1:01:01
  Matt Jacob: You know I'm strong enough to get through this myself.
• 1:01:03
  Matt Jacob: I don't need any help.
• 1:01:04
  Matt Jacob: Everyone can fuck off, right, but we all know that that just doesn't work.
• 1:01:08
  Matt Jacob: Having the humility to be able to go and be vulnerable with a stranger, or even not a stranger, and start talking about it, and and then putting some discipline in place, right, whether it's with, like you said, with with clients, or with people you're working with, like why are you calling me 11, but why are you allowing them to call you at 11, right?
• 1:01:27
  Matt Jacob: So it's kind of like having that self-discipline as well and setting those boundaries so really difficult.
• 1:01:33
  Matt Jacob: When it comes to that, though, I think you know you just want to make everything work, because it's your income, it's your, it's your rent, it's your food.
• 1:01:43
  Matt Jacob: It's like you've just got, I've got to make it work, and I don't know how long this is going to last, for you could be like swamped in a project and then another client comes in going I want to work with you, and you just oh, I've got to say yes.
• 1:01:54
  Matt Jacob: The power of saying no is sometimes so liberating and so good for you, so that you don't end up in those situations A, you don't dilute your product and you don't dilute the quality of your work, but you also don't get burnt out, Right?
• 1:02:07
  Matt Jacob: So I think that's really important.
• 1:02:09
  Matt Jacob: On the back of that, I wanted to ask you how really now, because you've been doing this for so long and you know I'm I have so much respect for you for, for you know, just doing what you love for so long and making a success out of it.
• 1:02:21
  Matt Jacob: So kudos to you for that.
• 1:02:23
  Matt Jacob: But I do want to know what you would be doing if money was no object, right?
• 1:02:29
  Matt Jacob: If you didn't, if you didn't have to get money from photography, what would you be doing?
• 1:02:33
  Matt Jacob: If you know, if you had all the money in the world, what would you do?
• 1:02:38
  Matt Jacob: hip-hop dancer a beer what?
• 1:02:40
  Casey Fatchett: sorry, a pop dance, hip-hop, hip-hop dance hip-hop dance come on, show us some moves.
• 1:02:47
  Casey Fatchett: No, um, I'm I'm an enthusiastic dancer, but no, like, terrible.
• 1:02:51
  Casey Fatchett: Um, what would I be doing?
• 1:02:53
  Casey Fatchett: I, I, I don't know?
• 1:02:53
  Casey Fatchett: Like, there there are things that I I'm an enthusiastic dancer, but no, like, terrible, um, what would I be doing I, I, I don't know?
• 1:02:56
  Casey Fatchett: Like, there there are things that I, I, if money was no object, I was actually.
• 1:03:01
  Casey Fatchett: I think I was thinking about this today.
• 1:03:03
  Casey Fatchett: There was some things that there are, things that I love to do.
• 1:03:05
  Casey Fatchett: Um, I love to garden.
• 1:03:08
  Casey Fatchett: I'm to grow things.
• 1:03:10
  Casey Fatchett: I spend more time in my garden, I spend more time with my dog.
• 1:03:24
  Casey Fatchett: I, you know, go travel with my wife.
• 1:03:24
  Casey Fatchett: Um, it's uh, you know, those are like what I refer to as like simple joys.
• 1:03:26
  Casey Fatchett: They're, like it's always going to be something that I love doing.
• 1:03:30
  Casey Fatchett: Um, I also love making people laugh, which is the entire reason I started.
• 1:03:34
  Casey Fatchett: The nerdy photographer was like I'm not saying as a joke, but like to like get people to laugh about this business.
• 1:03:42
  Casey Fatchett: It's, you know, like we're silly people and then, and like the way that we, we take ourselves very, very seriously in a lot of ways.
• 1:03:51
  Casey Fatchett: Um, and there's just a lot of common experiences that people have.
• 1:03:54
  Casey Fatchett: And you know.
• 1:03:55
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, I just like I'd like to make people laugh and, you know, hang out with my dog and curtain those are, you know yeah I mean, I think that those are like the main things I would enjoy doing, um, but I was gonna say you were.
• 1:04:11
  Casey Fatchett: You were talking about like having the, the courage to like talk to somebody.
• 1:04:16
  Casey Fatchett: Um, I want to kind of go back to that for a second Like you having the courage in a lot of different ways um talking to a stranger, or talking to friends, or like, if you're feeling you're having problems, like talk to somebody.
• 1:04:30
  Casey Fatchett: But another place that courage takes place in in when it comes to growth, uh, in the business side of things, is the courage to say no to jobs, as you're talking about like oh, you're worried, like oh, where's the next job going to come from?
• 1:04:47
  Casey Fatchett: And somebody asked me recently, like well, how do you get higher paying jobs?
• 1:04:52
  Casey Fatchett: It was on Reddit, because they were like I feel like I'm stuck here, I'm afraid to raise my rates.
• 1:04:58
  Casey Fatchett: Well, you're going to have to say no to some people.
• 1:05:01
  Casey Fatchett: You're going to have to say no in order to establish that you need to be paid a higher rate.
• 1:05:09
  Casey Fatchett: I recently got a job offer from a huge company like billions and billions of dollars company to create images for them, whatever, and they told me what their budget was.
• 1:05:24
  Casey Fatchett: And I was like, well, it's kind of low.
• 1:05:25
  Casey Fatchett: They said we want a full buyout of all the images and I was just like that's way way, your budget is way, way, way too low because that's very expensive.
• 1:05:36
  Casey Fatchett: Because they were talking about using it for advertising.
• 1:05:39
  Casey Fatchett: And when you're talking about a billion dollar company using your images for advertising, that's a lot of money, um, for licensing those images.
• 1:05:49
  Casey Fatchett: And what I said to them was okay, here's my counter offer instead of all the photos, now it's probably going to like create like hundreds of images in the course of doing this project.
• 1:06:02
  Casey Fatchett: I said how about you choose 10 and I will give you a license to use those internally in editorial stuff, whatever, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:06:14
  Casey Fatchett: Uh, for two years, that's in.
• 1:06:17
  Casey Fatchett: That is well within your budget.
• 1:06:19
  Casey Fatchett: What you're talking about, like what budget we discussed and you know you're not going to want to use a hundred images anyway.
• 1:06:27
  Casey Fatchett: Like that's the thing that, like most people, like on the other side, when they're planning, they go like we want to have them all.
• 1:06:34
  Casey Fatchett: Um, like you're not going to use them all.
• 1:06:36
  Casey Fatchett: Uh, the chances are you're not going to, especially in the, depending on the project.
• 1:06:40
  Casey Fatchett: Like they're not going to use 150 or 200 photos.
• 1:06:44
  Casey Fatchett: They're going to pick a select few that they're going to use.
• 1:06:47
  Casey Fatchett: And I said, and then we can come back to it if you want to use it for advertising, back to it if you want to use it for advertising.
• 1:06:58
  Casey Fatchett: And, uh, we can discuss, like, what market you're using, because there's a lot of things that go into that, into licensing your photos.
• 1:07:00
  Casey Fatchett: Photographers, if somebody wants to use your picture for you know, advertising, you have to consider the market that it is.
• 1:07:05
  Casey Fatchett: Is it tv, is it online?
• 1:07:08
  Casey Fatchett: You know, like, is it just?
• 1:07:11
  Casey Fatchett: Is it all over the world?
• 1:07:13
  Casey Fatchett: Is it just in one country?
• 1:07:14
  Casey Fatchett: Blah, blah, blah.
• 1:07:15
  Casey Fatchett: Figure out the pricing for that.
• 1:07:18
  Casey Fatchett: They came back to me.
• 1:07:21
  Casey Fatchett: There was a lot of back and forth for a month.
• 1:07:23
  Casey Fatchett: Then they came back and said we hired somebody else who wasn't going to limit the number of photos or the usage.
• 1:07:30
  Casey Fatchett: I was like, okay, I don't feel like there was a time when I got really upset about that.
• 1:07:38
  Casey Fatchett: I would have been mad.
• 1:07:40
  Casey Fatchett: I'm like, oh, that job got away.
• 1:07:41
  Casey Fatchett: And I'm like, no, I'm fine with that job not coming away because it wasn't going to treat me.
• 1:07:49
  Casey Fatchett: People are like, oh, you're leaving money on the table.
• 1:07:51
  Casey Fatchett: I'm like, no, I'm keeping somebody taking money on the table.
• 1:07:54
  Casey Fatchett: I'm like, no, I'm keeping somebody taking money off the table for me, uh, because they'd be taking advantage of me.
• 1:07:59
  Casey Fatchett: And you know, like, you're talking tens of thousands of dollars that you know in licensing fees that, uh, they're not giving to the person that they hired.
• 1:08:12
  Casey Fatchett: So, so, like you have to be willing to say no if you want to get, if you want to advance and like, charge people more money, um, as a photographer, you need to be able to.
• 1:08:24
  Casey Fatchett: It is scary, it's really scary.
• 1:08:26
  Casey Fatchett: I remember when I was starting out and feeling really scared about raising my rates, I was like, oh, nobody's going to hire me.
• 1:08:34
  Casey Fatchett: What I didn't realize was you needed to raise them gradually, like 5% a year or 10% a year, so that it's incremental over time, so that when people refer you to somebody else, your rate hasn't gone up a dramatic amount.
• 1:08:54
  Casey Fatchett: Like if you wait five years and then all of a sudden raise it like 20%.
• 1:08:58
  Casey Fatchett: Um, that's like you know, suddenly you're losing all of this like crop of referrals, of people going like well, why are you so much more expensive than when so-and-so hired you?
• 1:09:10
  Casey Fatchett: Um, yeah, like that.
• 1:09:12
  Casey Fatchett: That.
• 1:09:13
  Casey Fatchett: That that's my advice is, like you know, stick to your guns as far as raising your rates and do it incrementally over time.
• 1:09:22
  Casey Fatchett: Sorry, I kind of like went off there for a while.
• 1:09:26
  Matt Jacob: No, it's a really important topic because this is not helping the industry at all If people keep.
• 1:09:32
  Matt Jacob: You know, so many people do free jobs and I get it.
• 1:09:34
  Matt Jacob: Especially when you're starting out you kind of need a quid pro quo kind of arrangement with maybe smaller brands and just as you learn.
• 1:09:43
  Matt Jacob: I kind of get that sometimes.
• 1:09:45
  Matt Jacob: But it doesn't help when you just get undercut all the time and, uh, you know we're going back to original, one of our original topics of conversation, where you know the, the abundance.
• 1:09:58
  Matt Jacob: You know we're in a we're in a buyer's market when it comes to brands and photographers.
• 1:10:01
  Matt Jacob: Like brands can just take their pick.
• 1:10:04
  Matt Jacob: You know they can pitch to 10 000 photographers and they'll find someone that does it within their crappy little budget.
• 1:10:09
  Matt Jacob: And I'm seeing this more and more with friends, with associates and just photographers everywhere.
• 1:10:16
  Matt Jacob: They're just having trouble getting jobs for the rate that they normally charge, let alone any kind of real increased value rates, because for some reason, huge brands keep tightening their budgets for photography and content and videos, whatever it might be, and I don't know why, I don't know when they they are kind of seeing this in the market that they can do, that they can charge for less or they can get free content, or if it's.
• 1:10:45
  Matt Jacob: You know, there are some effects of ai maybe in there with image generation or or, or you know um, artificial graphic creation.
• 1:10:56
  Matt Jacob: I don't, I don't know.
• 1:10:57
  Matt Jacob: I don't know about that world enough.
• 1:10:59
  Matt Jacob: But yeah, I, I see this all the time.
• 1:11:02
  Matt Jacob: So it's really it's easy for us to say I just know it's uh, I know you, you do it, you walk the talk and I, I say no way, more than I say yes, just because there are very few jobs that come along anyway that I want to do.
• 1:11:17
  Matt Jacob: So, yeah, I mean, I value my time.
• 1:11:21
  Matt Jacob: It's valuing your time.
• 1:11:22
  Matt Jacob: It's not necessarily your work, right, it's the time that you and if you're prepared to over-deliver as well, you know you're going to be spending a little bit more time than what it might be on paper.
• 1:11:31
  Matt Jacob: So at what rate do you put your time?
• 1:11:34
  Matt Jacob: And when you think about how much time you have on this planet, then you better value that rate pretty highly, um, and have some kind of respect for yourself.
• 1:11:44
  Casey Fatchett: But that's here's the thing that I I commonly like see that I don't fault people who are starting out for charging less money.
• 1:11:52
  Casey Fatchett: That's fine.
• 1:11:53
  Casey Fatchett: I think that you should be educated to know there are certain aspects of licensing because you should be aware of, because you're leaving money on the table if you don't charge for those things.
• 1:12:04
  Casey Fatchett: But I get that less experienced people are going to charge less money.
• 1:12:07
  Casey Fatchett: In my personal experience, having worked with corporations and brands, is that they yeah, they will try to go cheaply sometimes and they'll be like oh, you know, like I'm um, I'm just going to like go for the the least expensive person out there.
• 1:12:28
  Casey Fatchett: That's usually when there's a change in um change in management uh, somebody who doesn't quite understand what's going on, especially on the corporate side of things.
• 1:12:38
  Casey Fatchett: If you're doing, you know, like corporate headshots or whatever, like they'll come in, like somebody new will come in and like, oh, we got to get a new photographer, we're gonna get like the cheapest person we can find and then let that person comes in and doesn't have any idea what they're doing and like takes pictures using like the natural lighting and a fluorescent.
• 1:12:57
  Casey Fatchett: You know like, this is a true story.
• 1:13:00
  Casey Fatchett: I got hired for the job because, and they were like um, so how are you gonna combat the fluorescent lighting in the in the room that we're gonna take the pictures in?
• 1:13:10
  Casey Fatchett: And I was like, uh, excuse me, uh, I bring in my own lights, I have flash, you don't have to worry about that, they're going to take the pictures in.
• 1:13:13
  Casey Fatchett: And I was like, uh, excuse me, uh, I bring in my own lights, I have flash, you don't have to worry about that.
• 1:13:17
  Casey Fatchett: And they're like oh, cause the last person we we hired like just shot with like available light in, like fluorescent lighting in there.
• 1:13:26
  Casey Fatchett: I was like, okay, well, you may have to pay me more than you paid them.
• 1:13:30
  Casey Fatchett: Um will be the first, you know, step of that.
• 1:13:33
  Casey Fatchett: But like what I have found over a long period of time when it comes to like corporations, like this company who didn't hire me because I, you know, asked them.
• 1:13:44
  Casey Fatchett: They're gonna do that probably a couple of times and then they're gonna realize that the quality of the work that they're getting is not what they're hoping for, especially if they're trying to use it for advertising eventually, and they might not come all the way to where I would need them to be, but they're definitely going to trend upwards.
• 1:14:07
  Casey Fatchett: Corporations want people who can deliver, you talked about.
• 1:14:11
  Casey Fatchett: You don't have to be the best photographer, you just have to be the best marketer.
• 1:14:21
  Casey Fatchett: What, like, corporate clients and brands want is consistency and, like you know, you create a consistent product with your images and that they that you deliver on time.
• 1:14:31
  Casey Fatchett: Um, I know photographers who make we're definitely in that six plus figure area uh, who are they the most skilled photographers in the world?
• 1:14:45
  Casey Fatchett: Probably not, but, like they, they create the quality of images that, like these clients want, they do it on a consistent basis.
• 1:14:56
  Casey Fatchett: They, you know, like, and that's what they're learning for, um, and it's funny because, um, in some cases, uh, like their, their photos never really like are seen by the public, like their images are.
• 1:15:14
  Casey Fatchett: Like you know, like you know, you're doing a annual report photography for some you know fortune 500 corporation.
• 1:15:20
  Casey Fatchett: Like you know, it's like most people aren't seeing any of those photos.
• 1:15:24
  Casey Fatchett: Um, and it's, uh, it's hard for some people to grasp that that that's the case, but, like you know, like on people to grasp that that that's the case.
• 1:15:33
  Casey Fatchett: But like you, like I said, you create, if you create a consistent product.
• 1:15:35
  Casey Fatchett: This is any any genre of photography, a where you want people to hire you.
• 1:15:41
  Casey Fatchett: People want to see consistency, um, and that's what's going to help you raise your rates, um, besides just saying I've been doing this for five years or 10 years or whatever, they want to see that quality is like consistent, if not increasing over time, and that's what's going to like out there, that only people who know the technical side of photography and have a solid basis in the you know the fundamentals are going to be able to do, and that's why they're going to get hired interesting.
• 1:16:30
  Matt Jacob: Yeah, I.
• 1:16:30
  Matt Jacob: I don't know if that's applicable to the people coming up through the ranks, but I think it is.
• 1:16:40
  Casey Fatchett: I think it's, you know, like that they're going to.
• 1:16:43
  Casey Fatchett: They have to like, if you have a solid basis of what you like we said before, like on fundamentals, you're going to open up doorways along the way that people who don't want to if he had said at the beginning they're not interested in learning, they just want to do the trendy thing or whatever.
• 1:17:02
  Casey Fatchett: Like, I'm just going to try to recreate this image that I saw you know online or whatever, instead of knowing how and having a broader knowledge and skill, like, you're going to open more doors for yourself, for higher paying work along the way.
• 1:17:19
  Casey Fatchett: Are there any skills that?
• 1:17:21
  Matt Jacob: you have picked up, like really recently, that you kind of wish you'd learned a long time ago, always business stuff, I don't know.
• 1:17:35
  Casey Fatchett: I'm always trying to learn new techniques, like whether it's lighting or you know, just like seeing this.
• 1:17:46
  Casey Fatchett: This is something that I've gotten better at in the last, I'd say, five or six years, so I'll say I'll call that recent um at seeing the how I want to light, something like really just visualizing and pre-visualizing where I'm going to set my lights.
• 1:18:08
  Casey Fatchett: That's a that.
• 1:18:11
  Casey Fatchett: I think that before that I was just kind of like fly by the seat of my pants and like set things up and be like, okay, well, this looks good, um.
• 1:18:18
  Casey Fatchett: Whereas like using um, thinking about it ahead of time has makes that moment of when you're there to do the job that much easier and faster, um and less stressful If you've really like pictured it in your head beforehand, like what you want to capture, whether it's whether you're doing fashion, whether you're doing portraits's, whether you're doing fashion, whether you're doing portraits, whether you're doing like products, whatever, like before you get in there, before you've got the camera in your hand, before you're setting up the lights, whatever it is you're doing.
• 1:18:58
  Casey Fatchett: Like just thinking about the images you want to take ahead of time makes life much easier and less stressful, because then, when you get there, you're like oh yeah, I know what, what I want to get, and something else may present it to you and you improvise something new, like something pops up.
• 1:19:20
  Casey Fatchett: You can always be flexible and go with something new, but you have a basis to work off of instead of like showing up and going, oh shit, what am I supposed to do?
• 1:19:29
  Casey Fatchett: What am what was I going to try to accomplish?
• 1:19:33
  Casey Fatchett: Oh, yeah, like okay, and when that can.
• 1:19:36
  Casey Fatchett: Like takes, yeah, whether you're.
• 1:19:38
  Casey Fatchett: I started off talking about like lighting setups, but it's not necessarily just lighting setups.
• 1:19:43
  Casey Fatchett: If I was going out to do street photography, I would do a certain amount of like okay, what am I really looking for out of this session?
• 1:19:52
  Casey Fatchett: Like I'm going to go out for two hours or whatever.
• 1:19:56
  Casey Fatchett: What are the things that I want to try to accomplish while I'm out there?
• 1:20:01
  Casey Fatchett: And that might do a lot of more logistics involved in like uh, you know some of my favorite street photographers.
• 1:20:09
  Casey Fatchett: They have like black books about like when the light is good in certain parts of the city that they work in, like I.
• 1:20:18
  Casey Fatchett: That never blew my mind and I was like oh, yeah, it makes sense.
• 1:20:21
  Casey Fatchett: Like they, they've done the work ahead of time, so they know.
• 1:20:24
  Casey Fatchett: Like okay, you really can only go to this area these two weeks of the year, because that's when the light's really good there.
• 1:20:31
  Casey Fatchett: Um, like that sort of thing ahead of time, like you save yourself time and stress.
• 1:20:35
  Casey Fatchett: You're not just like showing up, being like why can't I get the shot that I want.
• 1:20:39
  Matt Jacob: Um, you think about it ahead of time yeah, but if I talk about mindful photography quite a lot a it just helps you on the day.
• 1:20:48
  Matt Jacob: You know any day that you go out deliberately whether it's a paid job or just a personal thing being comfortable in your brain with what a general idea of what you're going for, whether it's a combination of inspirations or a new idea or a new technique.
• 1:21:05
  Matt Jacob: And when I first started learning and I went on my first workshop back in the day, the pro that was leading the workshop just said you know, just just just go out and shoot things that have the color red in, or go out and shoot things with just one person in it, or go and shoot moving subject or just like focus on one thing, especially when you're learning, you can just try and you know perfect that area, right.
• 1:21:36
  Matt Jacob: So, but it goes with everything if you're doing I mean I'm going to ask you about your, your process in a minute but you know, if you're doing a uh, any project having, I mean I don't really like mood boards, but having a rough idea and plan or brief or just general concept in your head, like well, I'm going to try these three setups or I'm going to try these three techniques or something and, like you said, there will always be something on the day, right, that you have to adjust, but then you have that space, you have that mental space to be able to deal with that and improvise and be creative, right, and that that's so liberating.
• 1:22:10
  Casey Fatchett: I think that there's.
• 1:22:11
  Casey Fatchett: There's a big problem for people who are just starting out, who are obsessed with gear and they're like, oh, I got to have the latest camera and I got to have the latest thing.
• 1:22:20
  Casey Fatchett: Like, learn, learn on whatever you've got.
• 1:22:23
  Casey Fatchett: You know, like sometimes limitations are the best things for you, like I, I've recently, like started a new project uh, I can't remember if we talked about this before like where I found all this film expired from in the early 2000s in my parents house.
• 1:22:42
  Casey Fatchett: They're, like you know, dozens of rolls of film that had never been used.
• 1:22:47
  Casey Fatchett: And, um, I decided to like pick up my old film cameras and I'm taking like a roll of film with me on walks that I go on with my dog and like photographing my dog with this old expired film.
• 1:23:02
  Casey Fatchett: And each time I just take I only take one lens with me, one camera, one lens.
• 1:23:08
  Casey Fatchett: I switch up the lenses, okay, like you know, each time, you know I've got a 135, a 50 and a 28 and you know I'll go out there and like and and shoot that roll of film and like I limit myself to that 24 or 36, sometimes 10 exposures.
• 1:23:28
  Casey Fatchett: I've got some 10 exposure rolls of film that I have to be so intentional and mindful of what I'm doing because I only have a limited number of exposures.
• 1:23:40
  Casey Fatchett: You think about it ahead of time.
• 1:23:45
  Casey Fatchett: What do I want to get out of this?
• 1:23:47
  Casey Fatchett: It's weirdly liberating to like know that I don't have to sit there and go like, oh, I'm gonna have to switch, oh, I need to switch lenses, or oh, I need to like do this.
• 1:23:59
  Casey Fatchett: Like having those restrictions is like like takes things out of you, like the.
• 1:24:05
  Casey Fatchett: The taking the options away is here's a little.
• 1:24:08
  Casey Fatchett: If you're doing anything with in your photography business where you've got a price list, your price list shouldn't have too many options on it, because people get confused with too many options.
• 1:24:19
  Casey Fatchett: It's the same for you as a photographer.
• 1:24:22
  Casey Fatchett: I've got to choose between like 10 different lenses and a whole bunch of other things.
• 1:24:28
  Casey Fatchett: Like you know, I'm going to be stuck thinking about, oh, which lens should I use?
• 1:24:32
  Casey Fatchett: So you learn on what you've got or you work with what you have, and you'll be surprised Like as a, like a thought exercise, and you know, I think like as like training yourself with what it would be you have.
• 1:24:48
  Casey Fatchett: You know, when you're starting out like, work with what you got, you don't need to have the you know the latest and greatest camera and lens to make good photos, like we all like to say, like, oh, gear doesn't matter.
• 1:25:03
  Casey Fatchett: There are times when gear matters, like there are certain things you can't do without.
• 1:25:07
  Casey Fatchett: You can't shoot macro photography without a macro lens.
• 1:25:09
  Casey Fatchett: For the most part, you can do lots of stuff with limited equipment.
• 1:25:17
  Casey Fatchett: Honestly, you tend to be more creative when you don't.
• 1:25:27
  Casey Fatchett: I know that one of the things I struggle against is getting too comfortable and getting in a rut and just like doing the same shots over and over again.
• 1:25:35
  Casey Fatchett: Uh, I I think about like, okay, you know, I gotta, I gotta like spice things up and do something a little bit different.
• 1:25:42
  Casey Fatchett: Um, you know so that I don't like just keep taking the same pictures over and over again.
• 1:25:47
  Casey Fatchett: But when you're young and you're starting out and you've got all those things, you can try all sorts of things to get a sense of what your style is.
• 1:25:56
  Casey Fatchett: You don't have to be stuck in one particular style.
• 1:26:00
  Matt Jacob: I've just built a whole online course around the fact that equipment is a tiny portion of you know making great photographs, because you know, like you, 90 of questions or comments I get is what, what camera do you use, what lens is this taken on, etc.
• 1:26:21
  Matt Jacob: Which is which is fine.
• 1:26:22
  Matt Jacob: Look, I've been there, um, and I just feel like there needs to be more education surrounding this, certainly in in our industry, where it's like, yeah, of course, gear matters, like if you, if you can afford to have a better camera, then by all means go and get a better camera.
• 1:26:38
  Matt Jacob: But if you're just starting out and you're not quite sure and you don't know the basics, uh, just try and resist that temptation, right, it's so I, like you said, limitations just breed creativity and breed learning and breed education, and that's, if you can start from those fundamentals, then you're going to be way ahead of most people in in the field.
• 1:27:00
  Matt Jacob: But, yeah, interesting, interesting that you mentioned that now, um, we're getting close to your bedtime, so I, I'm I'm sorry for keeping you so late.
• 1:27:10
  Matt Jacob: I just, um, I wanted to touch on a kind of few more light-hearted notes.
• 1:27:14
  Matt Jacob: We've been we've been going pretty, pretty deep into subjects which I love, but, as as a comedian yourself, I'm sure you kind of want to liven up a bit.
• 1:27:22
  Matt Jacob: Um, tell us, you mentioned street photography.
• 1:27:25
  Matt Jacob: Now, I know you, you, you get out there and do the living in New York.
• 1:27:29
  Matt Jacob: It's, it's, uh, you know, such a such a wonderful oasis of of opportunities to do some cool street stuff.
• 1:27:35
  Matt Jacob: Do you?
• 1:27:36
  Matt Jacob: Do you kind of see your biggest inspirations in in in street photography?
• 1:27:41
  Matt Jacob: And when you, when you talk about wanting to, like I, you know I've been doing this similar photo so long how do you change that up?
• 1:27:49
  Matt Jacob: Do you get inspirations from other photographers and then kind of mold their new ideas into your work?
• 1:27:58
  Casey Fatchett: And, if so, who?
• 1:28:00
  Casey Fatchett: I look at all the genres.
• 1:28:02
  Casey Fatchett: I love street photography.
• 1:28:03
  Casey Fatchett: For one thing Recently I've really been loving the work of Phil Penman.
• 1:28:11
  Casey Fatchett: Uh he's fantastic.
• 1:28:13
  Casey Fatchett: I fucking hate how good he is.
• 1:28:14
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, Um, it's just like it makes me sick.
• 1:28:18
  Matt Jacob: Yeah.
• 1:28:20
  Casey Fatchett: God damn it, um, because there's like, there's something about like the way he captures New York, um, and living here, like it's just such a character in the photos and I've had the pleasure of talking to him about it.
• 1:28:34
  Casey Fatchett: I just look at that and I go there are things that I recognize like his techniques, that I'm like I know how to do that and that is certainly a thing that I like to do.
• 1:28:46
  Casey Fatchett: I'm like, oh, I might incorporate that into some things that I do, whether it's street photography or something else, Just because I'm like seeing how it really like plays out and find that inspiring.
• 1:28:56
  Casey Fatchett: There are other photographers like.
• 1:28:59
  Casey Fatchett: Johnny Edward is another guy who just like blows my mind.
• 1:29:03
  Casey Fatchett: He's a fashion and portrait photographer and he's just like he's a.
• 1:29:09
  Casey Fatchett: He's a fashion and portrait photographer and he's just like.
• 1:29:11
  Casey Fatchett: He's just brilliant, uh, like, and just like.
• 1:29:12
  Casey Fatchett: His lighting, his use of color palettes is just like it is blows me away, like how insanely creative he is and you know those sorts of things and I I look into all sorts I've got it's can't see because it's very dark in my office, um, but I've got like a whole like shelf full of photography books, like coffee table books, of things like.
• 1:29:36
  Casey Fatchett: There's like dance and like.
• 1:29:38
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, there was a long period of time where I like movement.
• 1:29:41
  Casey Fatchett: I love movement of like capturing movement.
• 1:29:43
  Casey Fatchett: That's a big part of my job as a wedding photographer.
• 1:29:45
  Casey Fatchett: So I like look at like dance photos and like you know, like, and find inspiration there and how, like you know, people captured, you know the human body moving, um, there's so much out there to like, get inspired by Um.
• 1:30:02
  Casey Fatchett: Also, I'm lucky to live in a place where there's a ton of museums, um, and you can just go and like.
• 1:30:09
  Casey Fatchett: But one of the things that I find really helpful is just sitting and watching people, and especially new york is good for that too.
• 1:30:19
  Casey Fatchett: Like people watching is real easy here.
• 1:30:21
  Casey Fatchett: Um, go out there, watch people.
• 1:30:23
  Casey Fatchett: It become a student of you, know like how people interact with one another especially for my job, uh, it's it's.
• 1:30:33
  Casey Fatchett: It's helpful to like see like the patterns and how people interact cool.
• 1:30:40
  Matt Jacob: I thought we'd end with um, not necessarily a question, but more of an experience from your side.
• 1:30:46
  Matt Jacob: I mean, doing 20 years of wedding photography must have given you some funny stories.
• 1:30:53
  Matt Jacob: Can you kind of think about one that you might be able to share with us?
• 1:30:59
  Matt Jacob: That is kind of an interesting or funny experience that you've had shooting a wedding.
• 1:31:06
  Casey Fatchett: I once had a groom threaten to kill me after the wedding.
• 1:31:09
  Casey Fatchett: He was going to have me assassinated because he was just trying to get free shit.
• 1:31:16
  Casey Fatchett: It was weird in the sense that we got to the, I did the wedding, I kind of gave them a break on pricing because it was out of season.
• 1:31:31
  Casey Fatchett: It was weird in the sense that we got to the, I did the wedding, I kind of gave them a break on pricing because it was out of season.
• 1:31:34
  Casey Fatchett: So it was already kind of like something I shouldn't have done to begin with and went to the wedding.
• 1:31:45
  Casey Fatchett: He was partaking in some illicit substances when I arrived at the wedding and I didn't take any photos of that.
• 1:31:55
  Casey Fatchett: I didn't want to be involved in providing evidence for anything.
• 1:31:59
  Casey Fatchett: But we get to the end of the night and I couldn't find the bride and groom.
• 1:32:04
  Casey Fatchett: So I was like, oh, what's you know?
• 1:32:06
  Casey Fatchett: I looked around it was like 15 minutes after I was supposed to leave and I said I told the maitre d I'm like do you know where they are?
• 1:32:13
  Casey Fatchett: And he was like I don't know where they are.
• 1:32:14
  Casey Fatchett: And I'm like, well, tell him.
• 1:32:14
  Casey Fatchett: I said goodbye, but you know I'm past my, I'm past my time to leave, so you know I'm heading out.
• 1:32:20
  Casey Fatchett: I delivered the images to them and then the bride came back to me and she's like these are terrible, very awful photos.
• 1:32:28
  Casey Fatchett: Um, we want these 45 8x10 prints for free, plus an album that has another 40 8x10 prints in it for free because the photos are so awful.
• 1:32:44
  Casey Fatchett: If they're so awful yeah, why do you say, why do you want so many of them printed?
• 1:32:48
  Casey Fatchett: And, um, yeah, the uh.
• 1:32:55
  Casey Fatchett: She's like oh, so they're so bad.
• 1:32:56
  Casey Fatchett: And you left early.
• 1:32:58
  Casey Fatchett: And I was like, you might not realize this, but there's a time stamp in the digital file and you can actually see that I showed up early and stayed late.
• 1:33:11
  Casey Fatchett: Uh, by the time that stamped into the photos.
• 1:33:15
  Casey Fatchett: Uh, so that's actually not true.
• 1:33:18
  Casey Fatchett: And so then I didn't hear anything from her and the groom called me up and he said listen, you can keep $150 for yourself.
• 1:33:26
  Casey Fatchett: And the groom called me up and he said listen, you can keep $150 for yourself for your time.
• 1:33:33
  Casey Fatchett: I was like, oh, wow, for my time, $150.
• 1:33:37
  Casey Fatchett: Wow, that's great.
• 1:33:38
  Casey Fatchett: Uh, he's like, but you're going to give us this album and you're gonna give us all these prints, you know, or I'm going to come up there and take care of you, cause they lived in Floridaida and miami and um, I was like, oh, because I'm a smart ass.
• 1:33:54
  Casey Fatchett: I was like, take care of me, you're gonna tuck me in at night you're gonna make me chicken soup when I'm not feeling so good.
• 1:34:01
  Casey Fatchett: And he's like, no, I'm gonna fucking kill you.
• 1:34:03
  Casey Fatchett: And I was like I'm glad that you've made it very clear.
• 1:34:06
  Matt Jacob: I was gonna say what you're writing what your intentions are.
• 1:34:11
  Casey Fatchett: Um, the and uh, you will never be hearing from me again unless I get a written apology.
• 1:34:18
  Casey Fatchett: And, um, even then, you know you're not.
• 1:34:21
  Casey Fatchett: You're certainly not getting anything from me.
• 1:34:23
  Casey Fatchett: Um, and I've, like, sent an email off to the bride, said like hey, just want to let you know your husband threatened to kill me and you won't be getting, you won't be hearing from me unless it's through a lawyer.
• 1:34:38
  Casey Fatchett: Um, yeah, that was kind of funny did you get paid?
• 1:34:42
  Casey Fatchett: Uh, yeah, they had already paid me, but they had already paid me.
• 1:34:47
  Casey Fatchett: They wanted a refund because my photos were so awful that they wanted a giant deluxe album full of them as well as a bunch of prints.
• 1:34:56
  Casey Fatchett: I was like, yeah, it's really surprising that the photos are so terrible that you want so many of them printed.
• 1:35:05
  Matt Jacob: So what happened?
• 1:35:06
  Matt Jacob: Did they contact you back and say we're sorry, we want them?
• 1:35:10
  Casey Fatchett: so they didn't get the photos.
• 1:35:11
  Casey Fatchett: No, no, yeah, sorry, I don't know what to tell you, but you threatened to kill me.
• 1:35:22
  Casey Fatchett: I'm certainly not putting up with that.
• 1:35:25
  Casey Fatchett: That is, that is, that is like you know, that is, uh, that is what all the all the doors go up at that point once you, you cross that line um well, that's hilarious now, but I imagine in the moment it's a little bit alarming I don't know.
• 1:35:42
  Casey Fatchett: I mean, I like I said I'm a smart ass, so I was just sort of like, yeah, yeah, my dad was a cop and you know, I knew a lot of guys when who had mob connections where I went to school, and so there's like, yeah, I don't know, there was a certain sense of me.
• 1:35:58
  Casey Fatchett: I was like, okay, you know, you're really buddy yeah this is this.
• 1:36:02
  Casey Fatchett: This is you're really gonna try to like have me killed over your wedding photos, are you trying to get?
• 1:36:07
  Casey Fatchett: I don't know.
• 1:36:08
  Casey Fatchett: I guess it is certainly a possibility.
• 1:36:10
  Casey Fatchett: But my immediate reaction was like right, you're not going to go through the effort of paying for photos, but you're going to pay somebody to off me.
• 1:36:23
  Casey Fatchett: This is not good, doesn't make good business sense.
• 1:36:30
  Matt Jacob: Yes, um well, I'd love to end a podcast on a murder threat, but uh, it's.
• 1:36:37
  Matt Jacob: It's been a pleasure to talk to you.
• 1:36:40
  Matt Jacob: Thanks so much for your time and, um, some really interesting topics conversation.
• 1:36:43
  Matt Jacob: I guess watch this space.
• 1:36:45
  Matt Jacob: But, uh, keep going with what you're doing.
• 1:36:47
  Matt Jacob: It's it's certainly appreciated.
• 1:36:49
  Matt Jacob: I love your nerdy photographer instagram page, so keep keep people laughing, um, because it's neat.
• 1:36:56
  Casey Fatchett: It's needed in this world.
• 1:36:57
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, for sure thank you, man, I appreciate it all right, take care, casey, cheers, cheers.
• 1:37:02
  Casey Fatchett: Cheers.