Latest / The Nerdy Photographer Podcast / 130 - Emotional Exposure: Tackling Mental Health Challenges as a Photographer

Transcript

130 - Emotional Exposure: Tackling Mental Health Challenges as a Photographer · The Nerdy Photographer Podcast

• 0:03
  Gulden Hauer: Snug,
• 0:04
  Casey Fatchett: not now golden. This is my self care time. Oh,
• 0:08
  hey there. Welcome to the nerdy photographer podcast. I'm your
• 0:11
  host, Casey Fatchett, if you've never listened to the show
• 0:14
  before, welcome. If it's your second time listening, your
• 0:17
  return is noted. If this is your third time listening, well, I'm
• 0:20
  going to need you to do the secret handshake. In addition to
• 0:23
  providing entertaining and informative photography related
• 0:26
  information, I also go on adventures with the crew of the
• 0:29
  starship Fibonacci. At the moment, I'm trying to carve out
• 0:32
  a little me time, since we've been running ourselves ragged
• 0:36
  for a while now,
• 0:41
  Gulden Hauer: snug snug, snug, snug, snug, snug, snug, snug,
• 0:47
  snug, snug, snug.
• 0:48
  Casey Fatchett: It wasn't a sigh. I'm controlling my
• 0:49
  breathing. Speaking of self care and mental health, in this
• 0:52
  episode, I talk with a host of the life of five podcast, Tyson
• 0:57
  Martin about the importance of photographers keeping an eye on
• 1:00
  their mental health. That's a very important talk we have
• 1:03
  right after the break.
• 1:04
  Gulden Hauer: Snug.
• 1:05
  Casey Fatchett: Please stop.
• 1:08
  Gulden Hauer: Snug.
• 1:09
  Casey Fatchett: Okay, I'm a race car in the red now.
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• 2:07
  Hello and welcome to the nerdy photographer podcast. I'm your
• 2:10
  host, Casey Fatchett, and we're here today with life of PHYS
• 2:16
  podcast host Tyson. Martin Tyson, welcome to the show.
• 2:20
  Tyson Martin: Hey, Casey, thank you so much for having me on I
• 2:23
  look forward to our conversation.
• 2:25
  Casey Fatchett: It's been, it's been a real effort to get
• 2:28
  together. We both had a lot of things coming up before we get
• 2:30
  into that. I'm going to roll the dice. Breaker 15, okay, Dream
• 2:38
  dinner party scenario. Who are you inviting living or dead?
• 2:43
  Tyson Martin: Oh, man, jeez, who am I inviting living or dead?
• 2:49
  I'd have to have Fred Herzog there, first and foremost
• 2:53
  Vancouver legend, Kodachrome, amazing. Captured this city like
• 2:58
  no one else. Man, I'd have to have, this is a tough one.
• 3:04
  There's just so many people limited to four. Just four,
• 3:07
  limited to four. All right. Jason Roman, stock, easy. My
• 3:13
  homie, Devin Allen, not without question. And then everybody's
• 3:19
  gonna hate me or because I forgot them. But my brother
• 3:22
  Johnny, Johnny, creative Johnny Edward. Johnny Edward loves that
• 3:27
  guy to death. Those would be the four that I would have to have
• 3:30
  at this party. Still one of my favorite interviews. Yeah, one
• 3:35
  of mine too. Man, like I didn't realize how connected and close
• 3:39
  you could become to somebody over a conversation, but yeah,
• 3:42
  we text all the time, or we're constantly promoting each other,
• 3:45
  and he's just trying to grow together.
• 3:48
  Casey Fatchett: He's a genuinely good person. 100% he wants to,
• 3:52
  he worries about you need, you know, we check in on each other
• 3:57
  as well, like the make sure that you know everything's good. And
• 4:02
  speaking of which your show, like, deals a lot with, like
• 4:07
  mental health, yes, sir, and I think that we've touched on it
• 4:12
  in some episodes of my show, talked about grief and creative,
• 4:18
  how that affects creativity, talked about some other things.
• 4:21
  I mean, for me, mental health is a huge deal, like I suffer from
• 4:26
  anxiety and depression, and it's, this is a very for most
• 4:32
  people, a very solitary hobby or career. And mental health is
• 4:39
  really something that that photographers should just should
• 4:43
  give serious thought to. And I've stumbled across so many
• 4:48
  people through this show who like we will have conversations.
• 4:52
  Sometimes people don't want to share it, you know, on, you
• 4:56
  know, while it's being recorded, but you know, things that we
• 4:58
  like, they talk about and. And they feel and I think this is
• 5:01
  something about your show that I really love is, you know,
• 5:04
  talking openly and honestly about struggles.
• 5:10
  Tyson Martin: Yeah, I mean to me, I had a very traumatic
• 5:14
  childhood. I've touched base on it on a few episodes of my show,
• 5:18
  I had a Vietnam veteran father who was very he was a Jekyll and
• 5:24
  Hyde. He could be the sweetest man in the world until the door
• 5:28
  is closed. He held the gun to my head when I was like, I don't
• 5:34
  remember eight or between eight and 10, while I was trying to
• 5:36
  protect my mother, who's abusive, but you know what?
• 5:44
  That's my story. That's part of my journey. That's what made me
• 5:46
  who I am. When I started the podcast, I wanted to do
• 5:50
  something different. I really wanted to go to a place where I
• 5:56
  was comfortable. And for me, photography is my therapy.
• 6:00
  Photography saved my life, but I'm still here because of my
• 6:03
  camera, you know. And a lot of people might hear that, oh, you
• 6:08
  have all these children, you have this and that that sounds
• 6:10
  selfish. Everything I dealt with being a single dad for 10 years
• 6:15
  to four of my children, was very stressful, very painful, trying
• 6:21
  to figure out how I was keeping a roof over our head, selling my
• 6:24
  car, walking everywhere for two years, doing all these things
• 6:27
  that a parent will do when it comes to their children, like I
• 6:30
  had no qualms. Didn't worry about it. I just did. So when I
• 6:34
  started the podcast, I was trying to think of a unique way
• 6:38
  to approach the conversation the life of vice. Vice stands for
• 6:43
  photography heals your soul. And then I was like, Okay, well,
• 6:47
  there's obviously connection between creativity and mental
• 6:50
  health. And then in order for me to have authentic conversations
• 6:54
  with other creatives about mental health and their
• 6:56
  struggles and the things they do to get by, I had to be open and
• 7:01
  honest with who I am. I had to seek out a therapist, because
• 7:06
  they can't talk about, you know, helping yourself through therapy
• 7:10
  if I'm not involved in that aspect, right? Because that
• 7:13
  makes me a hypocrite.
• 7:15
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, I think there's, there's, it's a, it's
• 7:17
  an interesting thing, like, I there was I'm in therapy. This
• 7:22
  is my third go around of therapy in my life, and I, like always,
• 7:33
  I'm trying to combat the stigma of seeing a therapist. I grew up
• 7:39
  in the Midwest where, like, everybody's the, you know,
• 7:43
  stoic, silent type, nobody talks about their problems. And still,
• 7:49
  sometimes, you know, when I will say something about, like, hey,
• 7:53
  we need to talk about this to someone that you know, I knew
• 7:56
  growing up, or whatever. Like, something happens, and I'm like,
• 7:59
  Well, let's talk about what happened to like, hey, you know,
• 8:01
  I know you need to process it, but I don't need that. And it's
• 8:05
  like, okay, but yeah, like, there's, there's a lot of
• 8:10
  things. There's a lot of different aspects of mental
• 8:15
  health, whether it's therapy, self care, medication, some
• 8:21
  people certainly, you know, medicate like, there's one,
• 8:23
  there was an article somebody wrote there was, I got kind of
• 8:28
  inflamed by this. It's like, you know, photography is my
• 8:30
  antidepressant. And I was just like, and it was just said,
• 8:34
  like, you know, if depressed, just go out and take pictures.
• 8:36
  And there's the part of me that's like, yeah, like, I get
• 8:39
  that. But for me, photography is also my job. So it is also, can
• 8:43
  be, at times, a source of stress and and then that can make
• 8:48
  things, you know, like, more stressful. And sometimes when
• 8:51
  I'm really spiraling, you know, and I'm thinking about, Oh shit,
• 8:54
  I got to edit this now and like that, that adds, like, another
• 8:59
  task for me to do. And I'm, you know, that's, you know, can can
• 9:04
  make things worse. So I was kind of like, oh, you know, like,
• 9:07
  don't say it. Like that. Like, because some people really do
• 9:09
  need the real medicate, the pharmaceutical, medication, to
• 9:14
  help with their issues.
• 9:15
  Tyson Martin: 100% Yeah. And then there's nothing wrong with
• 9:18
  that.
• 9:19
  Casey Fatchett: So there's, like, all these different
• 9:20
  things. Some people need all of it. Some people need one thing,
• 9:22
  meditation, mindfulness. There was another episode we did, I
• 9:28
  did with a photographer from England. You know, he and I were
• 9:31
  talking about how like photography, and I've done it
• 9:35
  more recently, in like, the last few years, we're using my like
• 9:40
  photography as outside of work, as a way to just really make
• 9:45
  myself present in the moment. Yeah? Because, yeah.
• 9:50
  Tyson Martin: I mean, there's no wrong or right way to find what
• 9:55
  works for you when it comes to your mental health. I mean, what
• 9:58
  works for me won't work for a lot of people. So like, right
• 10:01
  now I'm just unpacking the bags with my therapist, and he's
• 10:05
  like, Oh, this is a lot. And I'm like, we're not done, but it's
• 10:09
  stuff that I've held on to that's caused me to have grief.
• 10:12
  So, you know, everybody has their own way. If it's
• 10:16
  medication, my children are medicated, and that's great. I
• 10:20
  suffer from anxiety and imposter syndrome, so I am my worst
• 10:25
  critic. But when I started, like I was saying, when I started the
• 10:30
  show, it was going to be very the first few episodes are very
• 10:34
  gear based, you know, just trying to get comfortable. But
• 10:37
  as of like, Episode Seven or eight, we meet we I kind of
• 10:44
  switched. So I do very little gear talk, very little
• 10:49
  photography talk. What I have now is I have a comfortable
• 10:53
  platform for people to come and share their their story. So I
• 10:56
  actually just want to hear the story of them. What made them do
• 11:01
  what they do now, what got them through if they had struggles,
• 11:05
  words of wisdom, things like that. Just willing to share a
• 11:08
  true story so the people listening can actually get to
• 11:10
  know the person behind those images that they love to see.
• 11:14
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, because that's what makes I mean, this
• 11:18
  is something you know, that I deal with in talking to
• 11:22
  professional photographers. And, you know, people who really want
• 11:25
  to make a business of this, and they like talk about how to
• 11:27
  market themselves, and this is it's so related to, that is like
• 11:31
  talking about, like, what makes you different is you? This is
• 11:36
  why the people who are very like, generally, very successful
• 11:40
  as photographers, financially, tend to be really good at
• 11:46
  marketing themselves, but they know what they do well and what
• 11:51
  they do differently from other people, and why like personal
• 11:55
  branding. Like their branding. It like had this discussion on
• 11:58
  threads a little bit the other day, it was Andy Adams had
• 12:03
  asked, like, you're like, do you can as a photographer, do you
• 12:06
  consider yourself a brand? And I was like, you're a brand if
• 12:09
  you're a business a year, yes, like, that's like, if you're
• 12:13
  just a photographer, you're it's your hobby. It's something you
• 12:16
  do for fun. No, you're not a brand if you are in that for a
• 12:19
  business. Yes, you have become brand, or you've separated it
• 12:23
  and created a brand that is under some other name, but if
• 12:26
  you're using your own name as your photography business, trust
• 12:29
  me, you're the brand, and you need to figure out what it is
• 12:33
  like your brand does and like that's like a sort of a
• 12:36
  psychological exercise for a lot of people, because then they
• 12:38
  can't separate themselves from the brand, and that leads to a
• 12:44
  lot of imposter syndrome and other things, where the people,
• 12:48
  like, really hating on themselves because they're like,
• 12:51
  oh, I don't have anything special about me, or I'm not
• 12:54
  this, or I'm not good enough to say this about myself, and it's
• 12:57
  like, No, you have to, like, find a couple things your
• 13:02
  photography business isn't about the whole of you. That is the
• 13:07
  there are things you keep to yourself, you don't give to just
• 13:10
  the whole world as being through your business like you focus on
• 13:13
  some things that you do really well and that are important to
• 13:16
  your clients. And that's those are the some brand elements that
• 13:19
  are personal related and yeah, it, but I hear so many people
• 13:24
  like get upset with themselves and really torture themselves
• 13:29
  over feeling that they personally because, because
• 13:34
  they've made the brand about them like they can't live up to
• 13:39
  what It what they need to do. And trust me, even as someone
• 13:43
  who's been doing this for 25 years and has enjoyed, you know,
• 13:48
  a modicum of financial success at this to where, like I've
• 13:51
  always been in the black with my business for that period of
• 13:56
  time, still feel imposter syndrome all the time, all the
• 14:02
  time. It's just a matter of how far I let it go.
• 14:06
  Tyson Martin: Yeah, exactly. I separated my personal away from
• 14:11
  the life of PHYS account, and then I made myself like I'm an
• 14:15
  entity of the life of PHYS. I'm the host of the show, and I
• 14:20
  don't look at myself as the creator or anything like that.
• 14:23
  The PHYS name is an important name. That was my best friend
• 14:26
  and I created a fixed gear bicycle company called face. It
• 14:30
  was called Pedal, pedal Hard you shall see. So it was just kind
• 14:33
  of very important to us. We were young, had no money, so it
• 14:34
  wasn't going to go anywhere. So it was important to move that
• 14:39
  along. And I was able to change the acronym for it to
• 14:42
  photography, heals your soul. But when I stepped myself away
• 14:46
  from it, then I come and I sit down. When I put, like we had
• 14:51
  that issue with this chord, when I put this chord in, I'm working
• 14:54
  on the life of PHYS. That's that's that when the other one
• 14:57
  is in, I'm listening to a podcast. I'm. Listening to
• 15:00
  music, you know, just enjoying my life, editing photos, doing
• 15:05
  whatever. So it is super important that that people
• 15:08
  realize it's the business doesn't define the character,
• 15:12
  right, right? And that's a lot of reasons with me dealing with
• 15:17
  imposter syndrome, is I listen to other podcasts, and I'm like,
• 15:22
  Man, mine sounds similar, you know, you start putting yourself
• 15:24
  in that category, and then you get things in the you know, you
• 15:28
  get emails like that your show's top 3% of 4 million podcasts.
• 15:33
  You're like, what? Oh, what the heck, you know. And you're just
• 15:36
  trying to figure out. Then for me, that puts more pressure on
• 15:39
  me. That means I have to keep hammering, I have to keep
• 15:42
  pushing, and that put me in the hospital. So, you
• 15:46
  Casey Fatchett: know, yeah, you recently had a pretty big health
• 15:49
  scare. That was part of the reason that we've had a little
• 15:53
  trouble getting together. We had a scheduled time, and you're
• 15:58
  like, I don't feel so good, and then the next thing I know, you
• 16:01
  posted, like, I'm in the hospital. I was like, Well, it's
• 16:04
  a good thing we weren't. You went to the hospital and didn't,
• 16:07
  like, sit around trying to have conversation with me.
• 16:10
  Tyson Martin: Yeah, it was, it was bad man. Like, I
• 16:12
  legitimately got a two and a half millimeter saddle sore on
• 16:16
  my inner thigh from riding my bicycle. Thought nothing of it.
• 16:21
  I've had hundreds of them in the years. I ride my bike every day.
• 16:26
  Woke up. That was on a Thursday, Friday. On the ride home, I was
• 16:29
  like, Man, that's really sore. They're usually not that sore.
• 16:32
  Didn't think much of it. Went home, treated it. Woke up
• 16:35
  Saturday, my fever, nauseous. I'm like, Oh, my family was
• 16:40
  sick. I got I got this now, you know, so I went Saturday,
• 16:44
  Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, possibly Wednesday. Things start
• 16:48
  to get a little blurry for me. On the couch not feeling well.
• 16:54
  My son came home. He's like, Dad, you need a shower. So I was
• 16:56
  like, okay, cool. I'm gonna go to shower. Went upstairs, got
• 16:59
  ready for a shower, looked in the mirror, and I had a my inner
• 17:03
  thigh, basically from my hip, about seven inches down and 11
• 17:07
  inches across, was just this big, swollen thing that I didn't
• 17:13
  even feel. And I called my wife, and I said, You got to come
• 17:19
  upstairs. So she came up and looked she went wide as a ghost.
• 17:23
  Instantly, 911 called an ambulance. They didn't show up.
• 17:27
  Hour and a half, we waited, hopped in the car, got to the
• 17:30
  hospital, showed the intake nurse my the wet I could show
• 17:33
  her with my shorts pulled up, I was in for blood work, EKG in a
• 17:39
  private room. Within 30 minutes. The first few nights, were touch
• 17:44
  and go. We weren't sure. Doctors were concerned I wasn't going to
• 17:47
  make it. And I mean, this is crazy to me, now that I hear
• 17:51
  these stories from my wife, is like this little sore that I've
• 17:54
  had hundreds of have never affected me. And then I was in
• 17:58
  complete isolation. I had a no contact order. My family had to
• 18:03
  gown up. I couldn't have visitors. I couldn't have
• 18:05
  friends see me, and that they moved me to another private
• 18:09
  room, where, hate to say, the medical system dropped the ball,
• 18:13
  but they dropped the ball. They weren't checking my leg. They
• 18:16
  thought I was in there for an upset stomach, but I was not
• 18:21
  coherent enough to say anything. So my wife finally said, Have
• 18:24
  you even checked his leg? And they're like, Oh, he's here for
• 18:26
  an upset stomach. And she's like, he's got a crazy
• 18:29
  infection. That's why he's on four different antibiotics, and
• 18:34
  that was in that room for five days, basically isolated, you
• 18:39
  know, curtains pulled door shut, didn't hear, couldn't hear
• 18:43
  anything. You know, it was lonely, yeah, and then then I
• 18:46
  got moved upstairs into another private room, and that's where I
• 18:50
  sat for three weeks. Yeah.
• 18:53
  Casey Fatchett: I mean, there are times when that's went
• 18:55
  through something similar with my wife, and she had a horrible
• 19:00
  respiratory infection. And we had talked to her doctor, like,
• 19:10
  and she said, like, yeah, there's something wrong. There's
• 19:13
  something going on. And we went to the emergency room. The
• 19:17
  doctor said, like, hey, you need to, like, if this doesn't
• 19:22
  change, like, she had gone through like a round of
• 19:25
  antibiotics already and it wasn't getting any better, and
• 19:29
  it was just getting worse. And so her doctor said, like, you
• 19:32
  need to go to this hospital, to the emergency room. I already
• 19:35
  called them, tell them you need to speak to a pulmonologist and
• 19:39
  taken care of and like, this guy in the emergency room, like, I
• 19:44
  know, I'm just saying, I know that feeling because, like, he
• 19:46
  complete. He was, I always refer to him as the Andrew Dice Clay
• 19:49
  of emergency room doctors, because he was just like, Yeah,
• 19:52
  we're gonna, we're gonna run some tests on you, and in
• 19:57
  finally, like, after you. We had been, she'd been in a negative
• 20:02
  pressure room for five hours, yeah, like, they knew that
• 20:08
  something was wrong and they weren't sure what was going on.
• 20:11
  And this guy came in, and he goes, Yeah, I ran the tests, and
• 20:14
  I'm not exactly sure what's going on, but I think what we
• 20:17
  should do is, like, you should take this round of antibiotics,
• 20:23
  go home, and we're looking at, she's already taken that. She
• 20:28
  already took those. And he was like, he has, like, can you
• 20:32
  actually read her chart and figure this? And he looked at
• 20:36
  it. He was like, man, then I don't, yeah, I guess you have, I
• 20:39
  don't know what's wrong with you. And we're like, so why
• 20:42
  don't we see the pulmonologist that her doctor originally, you
• 20:47
  know, said we should. He's like, Oh yeah, I see that's on here
• 20:49
  too. I'm gonna call a pulmonologist. And I'm like,
• 20:52
  good for you, man. Like, it only took us crazy four or five hours
• 20:56
  of like, you know, sitting here where her, like, blood oxygen
• 20:58
  level was it like, 85 which is very low. And, yeah, so I am
• 21:06
  familiar with that sort of, I am glad you're feeling better.
• 21:11
  Tyson Martin: I was worried about you. It was I was scared,
• 21:15
  man. I'm I'm usually the tough guy who doesn't let stuff get to
• 21:19
  me, you know. So it turned out I had a strep a staph infection.
• 21:24
  They were they were fighting for space. I was on all these
• 21:27
  different antibiotics for five days before my blood cultures
• 21:30
  came back and they could fine tune it. Once they fine tuned
• 21:35
  the antibiotic, I had instant, instant improvement. But by this
• 21:40
  point, it had taken over my whole right leg. It was
• 21:42
  basically from hip joint down to my ankle. I think it was 17 big
• 21:48
  bags of saline, 10s of 1000s of milliliters of antibiotics. At
• 21:55
  one point in the beginning, I would close my eyes, my heart
• 21:58
  rate would drop to almost nothing. I'd hallucinate and I'd
• 22:02
  wake up laughing, and my wife was like, what's going on? I was
• 22:06
  like, Oh, I just had this crazy dream. She's like, you've been
• 22:08
  asleep for two minutes, you know? So, you know, I'm I have a
• 22:13
  long road ahead of me. Still. I can't do any real physical
• 22:16
  activity for four to six months. I've been off work for six weeks
• 22:21
  with no income. So things are tight, but, you know, we're
• 22:26
  making it work. I go back to my my office job on on Monday, so I
• 22:30
  finally will have some income before Christmas, so we can can
• 22:34
  enjoy ourselves. But I want to say the whole community, there
• 22:37
  was a ton of people that stepped up. And, you know, I had to ask
• 22:41
  for help. I had to suck up my pride and be like, Man, I don't
• 22:44
  know how I'm paying my my mortgage, you know. And I had a
• 22:48
  lot of people like willing to help, and for that, I'm forever
• 22:52
  grateful all the people that reach out to me yourself. You
• 22:56
  know, everybody on threads who has been a part of the community
• 23:00
  building that we've been trying to do since I since thread
• 23:03
  started, it made that time bearable. So I guess what I can
• 23:08
  say to people is, don't think you're a tough guy. Don't think,
• 23:12
  Oh, I've had this before. If stuff doesn't feel right, go get
• 23:15
  checked out.
• 23:16
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, I think that that speaks to a larger
• 23:18
  issue also, as well, I think with especially in regards to
• 23:22
  mental health, if you're having like, one of the best things,
• 23:28
  like, again, another was talking about on this my show was
• 23:34
  Dimitri Mack about the importance of a photography
• 23:37
  community. And one of the things that you know, I have come to
• 23:42
  find in recent years, probably through this podcast and, you
• 23:46
  know, social media, whatever is, finding those people that you
• 23:49
  are genuinely supportive of you and like if you're having
• 23:54
  trouble, you can talk to, whether it's in person, whether
• 23:58
  it's via social media or whatever, having that community
• 24:04
  and being able to say, like, listen, something doesn't feel
• 24:07
  right, and, or I'm feeling really anxious about this or
• 24:12
  whatever, and just it's, it's not therapy, but in some ways,
• 24:17
  it's similar, that you like talking about it. In some way,
• 24:23
  makes the you know, always when you talk about the monster, it
• 24:27
  doesn't seem as undefeatable. You can it becomes real and you
• 24:34
  it's no longer this abstract concept in your head that you
• 24:38
  are just making bigger and bigger, yeah, which can be even
• 24:43
  that dangerous.
• 24:44
  Tyson Martin: One thing about the hospital being isolated, I
• 24:48
  didn't really see I saw nurses three times a day, right? I gave
• 24:52
  her nobody coming in. I couldn't leave the room, so I had a 10 by
• 24:56
  10 room, like private, private room. Because of because of the
• 25:01
  connection, yeah, yeah. So the doctor's like, well, you need to
• 25:05
  get up and walk. And I'm like, I do. I walk from the bed to the
• 25:08
  door, the door into the bathroom, to touch the back wall
• 25:11
  and do that like 10 times. But what else am I going to do? I'm
• 25:15
  not used to relying on people to bring me things. I'm very self
• 25:19
  sufficient. So the I wanted a coffee. In order to have a
• 25:24
  coffee, I had to text my wife at work or text my mother in law
• 25:28
  and be like, Hey, can somebody bring me a coffee? Like, I can't
• 25:32
  even go leave my room to go downstairs to get a coffee. And
• 25:35
  that really, having all of your stuff taken away, that really
• 25:38
  starts to affect you mentally, you know? And then once you
• 25:42
  start to recover enough where you're starting to think
• 25:44
  normally, you start thinking about all the what ifs what if I
• 25:48
  didn't make it, what would happen to my children? They look
• 25:52
  like my first wife passed away in 2017 what? What would happen
• 25:59
  to them? You know, my, my, my youngest boy is 19, you know,
• 26:04
  yes, considered an adult here in Canada, but I still my baby boy.
• 26:08
  Yeah, like, what's gonna happen to my kids? So you really put a
• 26:12
  lot of pressure on yourself and and that's where, you know, I
• 26:16
  kind of listen back to some episodes, or listen to some
• 26:18
  other podcasts. I was gonna have my camera brought to the
• 26:22
  hospital, but I figured I'd outshoot the hot my my room in
• 26:26
  the first 10 minutes, you know. So I started, I started reading.
• 26:31
  I started planning for this new, new season of my journey, you
• 26:36
  know. So I started planning what I want from my podcast, what I
• 26:43
  want for my future as a photographer or as an artist,
• 26:47
  and then what I want for my personal life, and that's where
• 26:50
  you start to really start picking and choosing what's
• 26:53
  important and starting to put those timeframes into
• 26:56
  consideration. Yeah, so right now I'm at home for this week.
• 27:01
  I've hammered out, I think I've got four or five episodes
• 27:04
  already edited and ready to go. I've recorded a few, and I'm
• 27:09
  just trying to my goal was 52 episodes in the first year,
• 27:15
  which would justify one a week for the first year. I'm
• 27:20
  releasing episode 45 tomorrow.
• 27:24
  Casey Fatchett: I mean, how many weeks
• 27:26
  Tyson Martin: my year actually ends in February, right?
• 27:29
  Casey Fatchett: So, I mean, I'll be done for seven. Yeah. I mean,
• 27:33
  you're pretty close.
• 27:34
  Tyson Martin: I'm gonna do a like, Christmas kind of special
• 27:37
  thing where there's a new one probably every day, just to let
• 27:41
  I have so many recorded I might as well just do something a
• 27:44
  little bit different and try to give something back. So I try to
• 27:48
  give back to the people that my listeners. You know, I've given
• 27:51
  away Harlow lights, to listeners, patina LaPlante, I
• 27:56
  was able to send her a pro kit. And I've been very fortunate in
• 28:02
  everything that I've done with this podcast since February,
• 28:05
  nothing I would have imagined when I first started.
• 28:09
  Casey Fatchett: I think that, you know, there's something to
• 28:15
  be said for like, you know, like the mentioning, giving back. I
• 28:21
  think that that taking stock also is of what, of where you
• 28:27
  are, what you can possibly give to others, whether it's, it
• 28:30
  doesn't have to be like a physical thing, it's just
• 28:34
  sharing, you know, where this is. I think this is one of the
• 28:37
  things I love about your show, is people sharing their journey,
• 28:40
  and how much that can mean to I mean, it's helped me. Like your
• 28:44
  show has helped me. I loved it in the sense that, you know,
• 28:47
  listening to them going like, Man, I'm not alone.
• 28:51
  Tyson Martin: That's number one. Man is I want, if I see
• 28:54
  something I like online, like, while I'm on socials, I'll share
• 28:59
  it. I'll be I'll be the I'm a, I'm a fanboy of of art. I'm a
• 29:02
  fanboy of people's work. You can call me whatever you want. I'm
• 29:06
  not offended. I just if somebody posts something that is a banger
• 29:11
  that stops me in my tracks, I'm going to share that so every
• 29:15
  person that I follow or that follows me can see like you need
• 29:19
  to check this guy or this girl, whoever it is, you need to check
• 29:22
  them out, because they're putting out magic,
• 29:24
  Casey Fatchett: right? Yeah, I'm the same way I do
• 29:27
  Tyson Martin: community, yeah? And like minded people is seems
• 29:31
  like such a foreign thing now where, you know, growing up, I
• 29:36
  grew up in Oregon, I grew up in a family where you had to be
• 29:40
  tough. You know, men don't cry. Hold your feelings down. You
• 29:43
  know, oh, you're upset. Oh, boo hoo. Tuck it in. Get up, dust
• 29:47
  yourself off and get going. You know what that landed me really
• 29:51
  good for. You know, the first 25 years of my life, it destroyed
• 29:55
  my first marriage, almost destroyed my second marriage,
• 29:58
  because I'm. I don't ask for help, right? I'm very proud. I
• 30:02
  hold everything in, and then I explode. That's not a way to
• 30:06
  live a life. So I've learned, you know, my my current wife, is
• 30:11
  a super strong lady. She, you know, she calls me on my BS, and
• 30:18
  we have the ability to communicate, which I didn't have
• 30:21
  in the past. So every day, man, I'm learning. I'm learning to be
• 30:25
  a better version of myself.
• 30:26
  Casey Fatchett: Communication is super important. The I mean for
• 30:32
  me, like growing up, like there was just again, expectation of
• 30:35
  perfection was the like, Is it everything was going to be
• 30:39
  great, and I was an overachiever, and everything had
• 30:42
  to be right? And it's the, you know, I did a million different
• 30:49
  things. And as you're saying, it served you well for a certain
• 30:53
  amount of time. It was great for me up into, I think I probably
• 30:56
  in my, like, late 20s, maybe 30 or so, and then the wheel
• 31:02
  started coming off because I was pushing myself. You can't go
• 31:05
  with 100% all the time. Yep, you can't. Like, that's a lesson
• 31:13
  that's taken me since then, you know, over, you know, almost two
• 31:17
  decades from when things started going bad, to learn that you
• 31:22
  know, like, Hey, you can't always be giving everything of
• 31:28
  yourself. And that's what I was trying to tell you, when you
• 31:31
  were talking about, like, scheduling, and how you're
• 31:32
  feeling burnt out about your show and like it was getting to
• 31:35
  you. And I was like, Hey, man, this is, this is one of those
• 31:38
  moments where you need to take care of yourself and schedule
• 31:42
  appropriately. And scheduling helped me a lot. It just can,
• 31:47
  you know, even if you know what you need to do differently, it's
• 31:50
  not implementing it. It's always a whole other story. Yeah, that
• 31:56
  whole perfectionism ruined me for so many years. I think it
• 32:00
  hindered my photography career, because there were things that I
• 32:04
  just never put out, because I was like, It's not good enough
• 32:07
  it and I also just like, would focus on things like my website.
• 32:11
  My website is not perfect. And I was constantly, instead of
• 32:14
  spending the time marketing myself, building relationships
• 32:17
  with, you know, clients or other people, I was spending time on
• 32:20
  my website because that was just something that could never be
• 32:23
  finished. I gave myself this task that could never be done,
• 32:28
  at least not to what the level that I thought it was. And then,
• 32:31
  you know, when I finally said, like, you know what I'm gonna,
• 32:35
  you know, I once I let go of that. Like, things changed for
• 32:39
  me dramatically, but it's what your brain can do that to you,
• 32:43
  and you set yourself up for failure, or you set yourself up
• 32:47
  for like. Feeling like you're whatever you're doing is not
• 32:51
  good enough out there. And one of the things that, yeah, I have
• 32:55
  really enjoyed about the threads, the photographers of
• 32:58
  threads community, is that sharing stuff that I shot so
• 33:03
  long ago, like forever ago that, and it's actually got me back
• 33:08
  into, like, looking at old stuff that I shot. And there was a
• 33:13
  moment I was talking to a friend of mine who's also hosts a
• 33:20
  podcast from Canada about movies, but we were on the phone
• 33:25
  together, and I was looking through some old photos that I
• 33:28
  had taken of flowers, and I was just like, holy shit, these
• 33:32
  really good. And he's like, Yeah, you're really good at what
• 33:35
  you do. And I was just like, Yeah, but like, it's some
• 33:37
  reason. It's just dawning on me that this, these photos that I
• 33:40
  took, like, 10 years ago are, why didn't I ever post them
• 33:43
  anywhere? Why didn't I put them out into the world and and I
• 33:48
  think it was because, well, I'm predominantly a wedding
• 33:51
  photographer, and I just thought, you know, like, nobody
• 33:55
  wanted to see that other stuff. And just because, like, Twitter
• 34:01
  and Instagram and everything else was in Facebook was all
• 34:05
  like, it has to be about your business. It's not about your
• 34:08
  business. We don't want to see it like we like, and you're
• 34:11
  going to confuse people.
• 34:13
  Tyson Martin: Like has to be uniform, right? Everything has
• 34:15
  to look the same, right?
• 34:16
  Casey Fatchett: Your Instagram, you know, profile grid has to be
• 34:21
  color graded to the point where every image looks exactly the
• 34:24
  same. And when you look at it, it's all like, uniformly colors.
• 34:28
  When people look at your, you know, profile grid. And I was
• 34:32
  just like, and I fell into that. I was just like, oh, okay, well,
• 34:35
  I can't ever share this stuff, because this looks completely
• 34:38
  different from, you know, what I normally do. And then realizing
• 34:40
  I just started a print shop, I just, I It's been a project that
• 34:44
  I've, like, wanted to set up for three years, and I just finally
• 34:47
  did it. I finally, like, opened it last week. Nice, congrats.
• 34:52
  Thank you. It's just, but it's like, you know, I finally, just,
• 34:54
  like, had sat down and like, Okay, I've been putting these
• 34:57
  images together into folders for years. Is I need to actually do
• 35:01
  the thing.
• 35:02
  Tyson Martin: Yeah, yeah, one of my biggest things when I
• 35:05
  started, like, I'm still relatively new in the in
• 35:07
  photography. I mean, I started in 2019, and, you know, I've had
• 35:13
  I've had my successes, I've had my failures. But everybody told
• 35:16
  me in the beginning, because I don't edit, I edit how I feel
• 35:20
  the image. I don't care about it looking realistic. Whatever hits
• 35:23
  me, it's my art. I'm going to create it. But I fell into the
• 35:27
  same thing, okay, delete all the images. Everything has to look
• 35:31
  the same, right? And last year, I had this moment where I
• 35:35
  realized I no longer care about people's comments. It's just me
• 35:41
  my creativity, what I'm feeling, and I'm sharing it. You don't
• 35:45
  have to like it, but art is subjective, yeah? So I see
• 35:49
  people who will post things about, man, I'm not getting the
• 35:53
  algorithm or the reach or this who cares. Imagine being in a
• 35:58
  room with 20 or 30 people staring at you, looking at your
• 36:00
  work, yeah? And you're like, Oh, that's not enough. Really. I
• 36:05
  would love 30 people to stand in front of me, yeah? And look at
• 36:08
  the work I created. I see those accounts that have 567, 10,
• 36:12
  100,000 likes. That really doesn't mean anything, yeah. I
• 36:17
  feel
• 36:17
  Casey Fatchett: like those people are just trying to get
• 36:19
  their bonus from that's why they steal my content.
• 36:23
  Tyson Martin: I saw that. I saw that, I saw you post on that. We
• 36:26
  don't even get offered the bonus in Canada, right?
• 36:29
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah. I mean, I have never, I don't know what I
• 36:32
  need. I added a post real like, get 3 million views at the
• 36:36
  beginning of this year, and I still have not been offered the
• 36:39
  possibility of monetizing my my account. So it's like, I'm like,
• 36:43
  I don't understand what it is, but Okay, fine. But I like,
• 36:47
  then, like, when I see people with it's happened a lot in the
• 36:51
  last few months. It's happened about half a dozen times where,
• 36:54
  like, bigger accounts is, like, just flat out stolen my stuff.
• 36:57
  And I'm like, whatever limitation is the sincerest form
• 37:01
  of flattery. I'm like, Yeah, but either like, Yeah, but either
• 37:03
  getting paid, they're getting paid for my stuff. Yeah, I think
• 37:07
  that that's it. Those comments, I agree with you, like the
• 37:12
  comments you have to get grow a thicker skin, or, like, there's
• 37:17
  you have to see through what's constructive criticism. And what
• 37:23
  is just somebody who wants to tear someone else down because
• 37:28
  they've got a problem that same like, $3 million $3 million 3
• 37:33
  million view, real. I had so many comments on it, and some
• 37:38
  were like, Oh, this is great. Blah, blah, blah, love it, you
• 37:40
  know. But then there were these people who were like, oh, you
• 37:43
  know, this is, you know, this is bullshit. Like, real
• 37:49
  photographers, don't talk like this. And I'm like, come on,
• 37:53
  there's, there's a lot, there's a lot of people. There's 125,000
• 37:56
  people who have liked this real who would disagree with you.
• 37:59
  This seems to be a pretty universal experience. But then
• 38:02
  they would like, take shots at me and say, like, oh, you're a
• 38:04
  wedding photographer. You're not a real photographer or, and I'm
• 38:08
  like, come shoot a wedding with me sometime, and I'll see what
• 38:12
  kind of real photographer you are. And, or my favorite was the
• 38:16
  guy. There were a couple guys who just, like, decided to,
• 38:18
  like, make swipes at my weight, that's my favorite. And I'm just
• 38:24
  like, okay, like, I understand where you're coming. You're
• 38:28
  like, you feel insecure, and so you now you need to, like, try
• 38:33
  to make me feel insecure, to make
• 38:35
  Tyson Martin: yourself I struggle. I struggle with my my
• 38:37
  appearance. Say, ever since I quit athletics, saying, Man, I
• 38:41
  put on weight. Like, I'm a bit I'm the biggest I've ever been
• 38:45
  right now. And when you're in the hospital and they tell you
• 38:48
  you're obese because you're 6'2", 300 pounds, you know
• 38:52
  that's like, you're like, What are you talking about? Like, I
• 38:55
  don't feel obese. Like you look at other people and you're like,
• 38:59
  Well, I don't feel like that. But then you start thinking
• 39:03
  about it, because you're in a position where you're where
• 39:06
  you're you're already your body wasn't recovering as fast as it
• 39:10
  should. Okay, I got to make some changes, and one of my changes
• 39:14
  is my health has become priority number one. Everything else,
• 39:18
  whether it's my my nine to five job, whether it's my podcast,
• 39:21
  photo jobs or just taking pictures for myself. If they
• 39:25
  interfere with my health becoming better, they get put on
• 39:28
  the back burner, you know. So I'm making those steps for
• 39:32
  myself. One thing I don't understand about society, and
• 39:35
  this goes like, I'm not a big account, like I don't have a ton
• 39:39
  of followers. I don't really worry about it. I don't I just
• 39:42
  put out what I love, and the people that love it back are the
• 39:46
  ones who follow me. So I see accounts like Dave herring, one
• 39:50
  of my he became such a great friend after his episode. He's
• 39:53
  helped me through a lot of the upturn I've had in the
• 39:57
  beginning, he gets comments that say, to go kill yourself. Like.
• 40:01
  How sad of a human being do you have to be to tell another
• 40:04
  person who's doing what they love to go kill themselves? It's
• 40:08
  over, over a video on YouTube.
• 40:10
  Casey Fatchett: It's dude, like, I said, 25 years of this, and I
• 40:15
  like, I still take things personally, and my wife will
• 40:21
  always say, you've got to stop taking it personally and like, I
• 40:25
  can't, it's just who I am, because it's me, because it's
• 40:29
  that's a different thing. Like, there's a wholly different thing
• 40:32
  when, when you are the face of whatever, like, like you had
• 40:35
  said, like, I've said, You separated it. Even when you do
• 40:37
  that, you still like, like, it's still me, it's still my face.
• 40:42
  Like, if I do a video, it's me, and all of those things that you
• 40:47
  take it personally, and especially if, you know, like my
• 40:50
  photography business, it's my name, you know, like, if
• 40:53
  somebody starts talking shit about my business or my work,
• 40:58
  whatever my name's up there, talking shit about me and that
• 41:02
  that was a still, it's a struggle I still have. But like
• 41:07
  for my own, you know, health, it's been something that I've
• 41:12
  had to come to terms with. And everybody, I think, who suffers
• 41:19
  from something like that, when you take things really
• 41:21
  personally, you take comments that people have. Most of these
• 41:24
  people are just so full of shit. I had somebody telling me I
• 41:27
  wasn't a real photographer. Like, I always like, All right,
• 41:29
  let's see who you are. Let's see if you even post anything. Let's
• 41:33
  see if you have, like, in 99% of them have a private account, and
• 41:39
  it's like, Oh, so you're not even willing to, like, have the
• 41:42
  guts to put anything of yourself out for public consumption. Yet
• 41:51
  you're gonna, like, publicly tear somebody else down. Like,
• 41:54
  trying to like, but then I'll find the ones that like, who
• 41:59
  have been like, you know, there was one that was, like, a
• 42:02
  photography student, and I'm like, Fine, you're a
• 42:03
  photographer student. But like, don't talk to somebody who's
• 42:06
  been doing this professionally for more than two decades saying
• 42:09
  that they're not a real photographer when you have zero
• 42:14
  life experience at this point, like, you are so young and like,
• 42:17
  it's just like, I'm not saying you can't be good at what you
• 42:19
  do, but, like, really, he, do you think you are in a place to
• 42:23
  judge somebody else's journey as an artist, like, Hey, I don't do
• 42:28
  that. I don't do that. I've been doing this for you know, I'm
• 42:31
  getting closer to three decades of this than anything else, and
• 42:34
  I'm not sitting there, like, judging anyone's place in the
• 42:38
  world as an artist.
• 42:40
  Tyson Martin: Like, and that's the craziest thing is, how do
• 42:42
  you judge like, I don't do competitions. I'm not
• 42:46
  competitive when it comes to my work. I don't judge other
• 42:51
  artists. I look at their work and I appreciate what they do.
• 42:54
  And you know, even if it's not my thing, yeah, because it takes
• 42:58
  courage and takes guts to put your work in front of
• 43:01
  potentially millions and millions of people, right? So if
• 43:05
  we own our own, our own art, you know, I don't get involved in
• 43:10
  camera brand problems. I don't I don't care what you shoot with.
• 43:14
  Man, shoot with a toaster. Just have a good time. It's a potato.
• 43:18
  But at that being said, I'm, a die hard Fuji foam guy, you
• 43:24
  know, and it's, it's cool, like I just want to be myself. I
• 43:29
  don't want anybody to be anybody, but who they are, yeah,
• 43:32
  just be you. And that's the coolest thing you can do for
• 43:34
  your for your life, for your own mental stability, for your, you
• 43:39
  know, your own outlook, or what your plans are for the future.
• 43:42
  Because if you alter who you are as a person and you're not
• 43:45
  authentic to your own self, people can read that. People
• 43:49
  read right through you.
• 43:50
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, I think people's bullshit detectors,
• 43:55
  especially in recent years, have just like gone through like the
• 43:59
  strength has gone through the roof, like you can, you can tell
• 44:02
  when somebody is not being themself anymore, like it's, I
• 44:06
  think it's one of the things that you know when we talk about
• 44:12
  the brand, there's a reason that that the nerdy photographer, for
• 44:17
  me is totally separate from my photography business, separate
• 44:22
  from my personal life. These are all different aspects of who I
• 44:26
  am. I am authentic in each one of these areas of my life, but I
• 44:30
  don't talk to people on the nerdy photographer the way I
• 44:32
  would talk to my clients, because those are just I talk to
• 44:36
  you authentically you know as your you know potential wedding
• 44:39
  photographer or whatever you're hiring me for to do photography,
• 44:43
  but that's how I would talk differently to other
• 44:46
  photographers. Those are two different things, and I think
• 44:48
  that sometimes people like, I It's funny, because I get
• 44:52
  feedback from people going, Well, you said this over here,
• 44:55
  and I'm like, I'm talking to people who are hiring a wedding
• 44:57
  photographer. It's totally different than. Talking to
• 45:00
  wedding photographers about what they need to do, like, they just
• 45:03
  don't seem to like, be able to make those things work together
• 45:10
  and understand that you can be genuine in both Yeah,
• 45:14
  Tyson Martin: the latter has multiple rungs for a reason,
• 45:16
  right? Yeah, you can be authentic in different avenues.
• 45:19
  Yeah? I mean, I don't come on here. I sell custom off road
• 45:23
  builds for people's outdoor rigs, right? That's what I do.
• 45:27
  Nine to five, I'm 100% authentic and honest with them. You know,
• 45:32
  I'm a different person when I speak to my my family, but I'm
• 45:35
  authentic with them, just like I am when I'm on my podcast. I
• 45:38
  authentically have a great conversation with the people I'm
• 45:41
  I'm interviewing, and it's not even an interview, it's just,
• 45:46
  you know, I just call it a conversation now, because that's
• 45:49
  what we're doing. We're just having a conversation. We're
• 45:51
  getting to know each other, we're sharing stories. And it's,
• 45:55
  it's been a whirlwind, you know, I've started shooting photos,
• 45:59
  and what is that? Five years ago now, six years ago, and I
• 46:04
  thought that was going to be my focus. I'm going to be a
• 46:07
  photographer. That's what I'm going to work on. And two years
• 46:10
  ago, I decided I wanted to do a podcast. And it took me, you
• 46:13
  know, almost a year and a half to get up the courage to put an
• 46:16
  episode out.
• 46:18
  Casey Fatchett: It takes a lot, man, it takes a lot to put
• 46:20
  yourself out there and to keep putting yourself out there,
• 46:24
  because, like you said, before, like you start getting into the
• 46:27
  thought process of, like, being judging yourself, and we are our
• 46:32
  own worst critics most of the time. And something like you
• 46:39
  talking about, like, what's the worst somebody can say is, you
• 46:42
  know, no like to you when you when you ask them to do, like,
• 46:46
  Hey, can you come and be on the show? But you can create a
• 46:49
  million worse things in your head, where you're thinking how
• 46:54
  horrible this is going to be, and they're gonna think terribly
• 46:56
  of me just for asking them to, you know, do an hour long
• 47:00
  interview, and it's going to destroy my reputation in the
• 47:04
  industry, because so and so like didn't like that. I sent them a
• 47:08
  message through their preferred method of communication. Yeah, I
• 47:16
  had the gall to ask them to come on my show,
• 47:20
  Tyson Martin: but it's led me to so many great things. Yeah, I've
• 47:23
  been able to speak in front of photo 910, classes, you know,
• 47:28
  and watch all 30 students with their eyes strictly focused on
• 47:32
  me and listening to what I say, and then them doing a photo
• 47:36
  project based on my talk to bring me back at the end of the
• 47:39
  year to see all their images in the hallway like that was the
• 47:42
  coolest experience I've ever had that the teacher name was Jen
• 47:45
  Echols. She's become a very close friend of mine, and she's
• 47:49
  just like such a unique creature. I don't even want to
• 47:52
  that sounds bad. A unique creature, a unique person. She
• 47:57
  just wants the kids to experience taking photos, not
• 48:00
  the exposure triangle, not worrying about shutter speed.
• 48:03
  You know, ISO, like, let's just shoot photos. Let's get
• 48:06
  comfortable with the camera. Capture what you want to
• 48:08
  capture, and then let's talk about it. Yeah, it's a way that
• 48:13
  most people should learn to shoot is just have fun with the
• 48:16
  camera. Doesn't matter if you're on auto or manual or aperture
• 48:20
  priority, none of that matters. Just get out with your camera
• 48:23
  and experience the joys of capturing beauty and moments
• 48:26
  that are not going to be there ever again.
• 48:29
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, and, you know, here's the thing like
• 48:30
  that, while my show tends to be geared towards, more towards
• 48:37
  professional photographers, just because, like, we talk about
• 48:40
  business stuff as well as, you know, creative things and
• 48:43
  people's journeys. I think that there are lessons that everyone
• 48:48
  who enjoys photography in some way, and you shouldn't,
• 48:52
  hopefully enjoy it, even if you're a professional.
• 48:55
  Otherwise, it's a pretty sad life to choose for yourself that
• 49:00
  there are, you know, finding the joy in it is super important.
• 49:06
  And like you said, like go out, take pictures. If your first
• 49:10
  exposure to photography is like somebody trying to tell you all
• 49:14
  the rules and all the things you have to do like you, suddenly
• 49:19
  feel governed by that and like that, you, like you, are
• 49:22
  suddenly contained. Your creativity is now contained by
• 49:29
  those rules. And I think that's there's something to say in the
• 49:32
  larger life that that can affect pretty much, that can be how
• 49:37
  much you're affected in any aspect of your life by how those
• 49:40
  original like interactions go. But when it comes to
• 49:44
  photography, if you are just starting out, or, you know,
• 49:47
  someone who's just starting out and is interested in it, like,
• 49:50
  give them all the freedom that you can at the beginning, and
• 49:54
  then you start to add in other things and say, like, hey, you
• 49:57
  know what if you want to, like. If you are, if you are concerned
• 50:03
  about, you know, improving your photos or getting more
• 50:07
  consistent, here's something. Here's the exposure triangle.
• 50:11
  And this is how that affects things. This is how you know
• 50:15
  whatever, whatever the next lesson is, and the next step,
• 50:18
  you know, if you want to continue learning, and you
• 50:23
  hopefully should, but you know what, some people might not
• 50:27
  spend that much time on it, like may not like they're only
• 50:30
  interested in, like, once a month taking a picture that you
• 50:36
  know means something to them. It's not like a obsessive act.
• 50:43
  Like it is for you know, by myself
• 50:47
  Tyson Martin: only two I'm obsessed with it. Camera is with
• 50:50
  me every day, but being without it for three weeks was crazy,
• 50:55
  yeah.
• 50:56
  Casey Fatchett: And the thing was, I like, immediately when
• 50:58
  you said that, and you're like, I'm gonna out shoot the room.
• 51:00
  And I'm like, I would have come up with some like ideas for you
• 51:04
  to like, to a limit yourself to the number of photos you can
• 51:08
  take each day, and telling a different story.
• 51:12
  Tyson Martin: Yeah, each day I have them on my on my cell
• 51:14
  phone. I just use my phone, yeah, I was, you know, capturing
• 51:19
  at one point, I shot the pump machine for all the IVs and
• 51:23
  everything, and there was, like, eight or nine bags of stuff on
• 51:28
  there all going into my body. And, you know, it was such a
• 51:32
  weird feeling, you know, or the EKG machine, or the commode I
• 51:38
  had to use in a room because there was no bathroom, you know,
• 51:41
  like, it was just all these weird experiences that I've
• 51:44
  never dealt with, you know, the embarrassing moments where you
• 51:48
  have to, like, Call someone in to, you know, deal with things,
• 51:51
  yeah, and you're like, No, let me deal with it. I'm good. Like,
• 51:54
  I can, I can handle it. But the fact of life was, I wasn't good,
• 51:59
  you know. So I was trying to capture those moments that were
• 52:03
  real and what I was going through. And I think a lot of
• 52:07
  it, I've looked back, and it's not stuff I'll probably share,
• 52:11
  but it lets me see where I was at, and you can see in the
• 52:14
  images where I was exhausted or wore out, and then as I was
• 52:18
  getting better and feeling better, there was a lot more
• 52:21
  creativity put into taking the photo of the sink or the clock.
• 52:25
  You know, it's, it's, it's weird. How more hopeful, I
• 52:31
  think. So, you know, once, you know, there's a couple times
• 52:34
  they told me I was going home and I was all excited, yeah,
• 52:36
  remember, and then they go, now you're here for two more weeks.
• 52:43
  You know, like my family, like I miss my family, you know, I miss
• 52:49
  my dogs, I miss my house, you know, so in the grand scheme of
• 52:55
  things, photography has brought me everything that I have to
• 52:57
  this point. Finding photography saved my life, the time, finding
• 53:01
  photography brought me my podcast. My podcast allowed me
• 53:04
  to finally speak to a therapist. You know, there's all these
• 53:08
  steps, and it's allowed me to be such a how do I word it? It's
• 53:16
  allowed me to be the person I've always wanted to be.
• 53:20
  Casey Fatchett: It's allowed you to grow into the person that you
• 53:24
  wanted to be. I think
• 53:25
  Tyson Martin: I always read books and in school, but I hid
• 53:28
  them because, you know, as a football player, so we don't, we
• 53:31
  don't read books, you know, we aren't smart, just going out and
• 53:34
  we're just hammering people. That's what we do.
• 53:35
  Casey Fatchett: Wow, I was that was an all academic, all state
• 53:39
  academic, football player, man. So like, I tried to book the
• 53:44
  trend, but I didn't. I think that. I think that one of the
• 53:49
  like, I think it's important, like, the growth, like, there's
• 53:53
  times when people are like, I want to be the person I want to
• 53:57
  be, or whatever, and thinking of that as a separate person from
• 54:01
  who they are now. It's an evolution. It's an evolution,
• 54:06
  and that means taking care of yourself and growing to that
• 54:10
  point. It doesn't mean you swap. There's not a magic bullet.
• 54:17
  There's no one time thing. And that's that I think, that tends
• 54:20
  to be the mistake that I see a in mental health and physical
• 54:28
  health and in photography, there's, there's always this,
• 54:31
  like, there's this magical thinking that there's going to
• 54:33
  be one thing that's going to happen and that's going to
• 54:36
  change everything overnight, and my problem solved, There's gonna
• 54:41
  be that one job. This was always the pitfall that I fell into,
• 54:45
  even for the first 1012, years of being a professional
• 54:52
  photographer, thinking that there's gonna be a job. There's
• 54:55
  gonna be one job that comes along, and this was like a
• 54:58
  mental health issue as well. There's gonna be one. Job that
• 55:00
  comes along, and it's going to solve the problems. It's going
• 55:03
  to be like, a recurring thing, and it's going to like, I'm not
• 55:06
  going to have to worry as much as I do, and that's going to
• 55:09
  solve all these problems. And my I'm not going to be as stressed
• 55:12
  out. It's like, no, like, you have to do the work, and you
• 55:17
  have to develop yourself. Hey, develop who it's a photography
• 55:22
  terms. Did not attend. You have to develop yourself.
• 55:28
  Tyson Martin: I fully understand what you're saying. There's I
• 55:32
  have the same moments like, Okay, I buy this piece of gear.
• 55:35
  Okay, you just got to do this and this, and it's paid for.
• 55:38
  Well, I'm great at telling myself that's what I'm going to
• 55:42
  do, but by when it comes to actually doing it, you know,
• 55:44
  there's a million excuses for not doing it, right? So it's
• 55:48
  it's very important to understand, like, you don't need
• 55:51
  the latest and greatest of anything. First and foremost,
• 55:54
  I've had every camera system under the world under the sun.
• 55:57
  In the last six years, I've thrown away 1000s of dollars
• 56:01
  doing trade ins and everything to get the same fuji film camera
• 56:06
  that I had in 2019 you know, it's, it's a weird way to look
• 56:11
  at life. Now, I don't really, I mean, I, I have some things that
• 56:16
  have piqued my interest recently, but for the most part,
• 56:19
  I'm okay with what I have. It's takes great photos, does
• 56:24
  everything I needed to do. So while you're trying to build
• 56:28
  yourself up and be this photographer, you have to
• 56:30
  understand you don't need to spend $30,000 on gear, because
• 56:34
  the gear is just a tool on the avenue you're going after.
• 56:39
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, I mean, I find like, there are times when
• 56:41
  I'll, like, talk about, like, Oh, this is, I would do those,
• 56:44
  this is what's in my bag for a wedding or whatever. And I would
• 56:51
  post that and like, people be like, oh, man, I'm so jealous of
• 56:54
  whatever. And I'm like, that's, you know, at that point in time,
• 56:57
  I'm like, that's 20 years, 20 years of accumulating stuff and
• 57:03
  finding the things that work for me and understanding that there
• 57:07
  are things that only work for certain scenarios that I want to
• 57:12
  capture. You know, there are things that other people wanted,
• 57:16
  like the other gear that they wanted, they would just get it
• 57:18
  like, Oh, this is, this is what's popular. Now, I never did
• 57:22
  that because I was just like, No, these are the shots that I
• 57:24
  want to get. And then occasionally, would like, grab a
• 57:27
  new thing and get a new thing here. And eventually, I've
• 57:32
  accumulated my kit in over 20 years. It doesn't just happen
• 57:37
  overnight. I didn't just go out and like, blow through my credit
• 57:40
  cards and try to get all this stuff.
• 57:45
  Tyson Martin: Yep, that's the thing, man, like people, people
• 57:47
  will put themselves in a position that that can't be
• 57:50
  easily recovered from. Yeah, you know, putting yourself in
• 57:54
  $30,000 of credit card debt is one. It's financially
• 57:58
  irresponsible. And to, like, if anything, like me, your brains
• 58:04
  telling you, all I got to do is do this, this and this paid off
• 58:06
  easy, right? Yeah, yeah. And never works out that way.
• 58:11
  Casey Fatchett: I not saying I've always been perfect as far
• 58:14
  as the financials, but there's, there's certainly, like, that
• 58:19
  was a not one of the pitfalls that I commonly made, like
• 58:23
  overspending on things. And like, you know, I would
• 58:26
  generally only buy something if I had the money already,
• 58:30
  especially it was a big purchase, small purchases. You
• 58:34
  know, there's sometimes I'm like, Yeah, whatever. Like,
• 58:36
  that's fine. But like, a new camera body, I would always wait
• 58:40
  until the money was in. And that's the thing about running a
• 58:42
  business, that's if you're running a business for it, or if
• 58:45
  you're not, if it's just a hobby, I would definitely wait
• 58:49
  until you've got the money before you buy the thing. Like,
• 58:54
  I have friends who would say, like, oh, leverage that credit.
• 58:57
  Leverage that credit. Like, a certain amount. Like, if you
• 58:59
  know, you've got jobs booked that are going to come in, you
• 59:02
  know, over x period of time, I've already got them booked,
• 59:06
  like, you get the new piece of gear, especially if it's
• 59:09
  something that allows you to do new jobs, like the into ad
• 59:13
  services or whatever, like, that's a whole system of thought
• 59:17
  that I don't generally agree with. But, you know, it can
• 59:20
  work. But I think that this is something that also there's a
• 59:26
  episode as we're recording this, this is the episode I just did
• 59:32
  where we talked about how gear isn't that important in the long
• 59:38
  run, that your skill and your eye and your creativity far
• 59:49
  outweigh, you know, whatever like thoughts that you think
• 59:55
  that the camera is doing the work. It's really funny how
• 59:58
  sorry, still talking about. But I always see those like memes
• 1:00:01
  where people are like, Oh, your camera must take really great
• 1:00:04
  pictures, whatever. And how offended photographers get by
• 1:00:08
  that comment, while at the same time we're like, I gotta get
• 1:00:12
  that new camera. And it's like,
• 1:00:15
  Tyson Martin: it's so true. That comment sounds like something
• 1:00:17
  Scott Bourne would say, yeah, yeah. He's on mine. He's like,
• 1:00:22
  Ben, I can take a great photo of any bird with any camera. Just
• 1:00:26
  the best lens makes it that much nicer. And that's with him
• 1:00:30
  talking about helping Olympus develop their in their
• 1:00:33
  telephoto. Yeah.
• 1:00:34
  Casey Fatchett: So, yeah, it's there are times when gear
• 1:00:40
  matters or makes the photo better, but you can still take a
• 1:00:44
  I think that's a huge hurdle. I think that mentally people need
• 1:00:49
  to get over I agree with you. I think that's a good place.
• 1:00:58
  Hey, photographers, are you tired of using the same stale
• 1:01:00
  poses with your clients, resulting in stiff and unnatural
• 1:01:03
  photos, consider using let's be real prompts instead. Prompts
• 1:01:07
  are not just a list of poses. They're designed to help you
• 1:01:10
  create a more engaging, fun environment for your photo
• 1:01:13
  subjects, resulting in more natural and authentic images
• 1:01:16
  with nerdy photographers, let's be real prompts, you'll have a
• 1:01:18
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• 1:01:21
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• 1:01:25
  are particularly helpful for clients who are nervous or self
• 1:01:28
  conscious about having their picture taken by giving them
• 1:01:30
  something else to focus on, they can become more relaxed and
• 1:01:33
  their reactions will be more authentic and less guarded.
• 1:01:36
  Using let's be real, prompts will not only help you create
• 1:01:39
  more fresh and dynamic images, but it will also increase your
• 1:01:42
  confidence and your clients confidence in you. You'll be
• 1:01:46
  able to handle difficult situations and subjects with
• 1:01:48
  ease, resulting in more satisfied clients and a stronger
• 1:01:52
  photography business. So start using, let's be real, prompts
• 1:01:55
  from the nerdy photographer today, and elevate your
• 1:01:58
  photography to the next level. Go to nerdy photographer.com and
• 1:02:01
  go to our store or click the link in the Episode Notes and
• 1:02:04
  get started creating authentic, engaging images today.
• 1:02:14
  Hey there, listeners, it's time for what I like to call a little
• 1:02:16
  shameless self promotion. After years of planning and trying to
• 1:02:21
  get this project done, I have finally launched my online print
• 1:02:24
  shop. Yes, you can buy prints of my photos. That way. You can
• 1:02:30
  support a small business and the podcast at the same time. Just
• 1:02:34
  head over to link in the Episode Notes and check it out there
• 1:02:38
  photos from Scotland, Italy, France. There's wildlife photos.
• 1:02:44
  There are amazing flower photos, and they're photos of the city I
• 1:02:49
  called home for 20 years, New York City. So many pictures to
• 1:02:53
  choose from, and there are more coming as I get the time to
• 1:02:56
  process them and edit them and get them online. You can choose
• 1:03:00
  from fine art prints, metallic prints, acrylic prints, and
• 1:03:04
  there are tons of sizes to choose from, whatever you might
• 1:03:07
  need. So you know, what are you waiting for? Bring some beauty
• 1:03:11
  to your walls and some inspiration to your life with a
• 1:03:14
  print from my fine art print shop, just click on a link in
• 1:03:17
  the Episode Notes, go to it. I Hey, now for my favorite part of
• 1:03:27
  the show, what's that? Say? Useless information. This is
• 1:03:33
  always death.
• 1:03:36
  Tyson Martin: Hope, hopefully you got some some good stuff.
• 1:03:39
  Casey Fatchett: Tyson, did you know that there are some
• 1:03:44
  conspiracy theorists who believe that 300 years of history have
• 1:03:50
  been completely fabricated?
• 1:03:53
  Tyson Martin: I do.
• 1:03:54
  Casey Fatchett: So you're aware of this, the Phantom time hypothesis.
• 1:03:57
  Tyson Martin: It I am. It wipes out my whole my whole heritage,
• 1:04:01
  basically.
• 1:04:02
  Casey Fatchett: So, yeah, there's the just people who
• 1:04:04
  believe that the entire the middle age, like, there's the
• 1:04:07
  300 years of the Middle Ages didn't exist.
• 1:04:10
  Tyson Martin: Yeah,
• 1:04:10
  Casey Fatchett: it was added to the calendar,
• 1:04:13
  Tyson Martin: just thrown in there.
• 1:04:14
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah? Well, it's just because, like, adding 300
• 1:04:18
  years makes so much sense to just like, Yeah, I don't know
• 1:04:23
  it's, it boggles my mind sometimes what people will
• 1:04:27
  believe, though, I have a feeling from listening to your
• 1:04:32
  show, the you've seen some things,
• 1:04:36
  Tyson Martin: I do have some things I believe, Yeah,
• 1:04:39
  Casey Fatchett: like, I mean, like it now that, like, I've
• 1:04:43
  seen some things here and there too. Maybe this is time for
• 1:04:45
  another episode.
• 1:04:46
  Tyson Martin: You must have listened to the Johnny Johnny
• 1:04:48
  episode because we were talking about aliens. We were talking
• 1:04:52
  about, I grew up believing in Sasquatch. My grandpa would tell
• 1:04:55
  me stories the Montana forest that he was a logger, and things
• 1:04:58
  big machinery get into. Roamed through the camps and these
• 1:05:01
  weird, crazy noises. And now I live 30 minutes from the most
• 1:05:07
  deep, intense forest where all the Sasquatch sightings are seen
• 1:05:10
  in this part of British Columbia. So I'm a Sasquatch
• 1:05:15
  believer. I'm indigenous, so the Sasquatch is very important to
• 1:05:18
  our culture. So yeah, I
• 1:05:21
  Casey Fatchett: believe there are things that just because you
• 1:05:24
  haven't seen it doesn't mean it's not out there. The alien
• 1:05:27
  thing, man, I have. My question isn't whether they exist or
• 1:05:34
  whether there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.
• 1:05:37
  It's whether or not it has been here. Is here, is here, and I
• 1:05:42
  don't know the briefcase, apparently there's shit in the
• 1:05:44
  ocean that we like that. That news came out while you were in
• 1:05:47
  the hospital. I don't know if you caught that.
• 1:05:49
  Tyson Martin: Like I didn't. I'll have to look it up. We
• 1:05:50
  don't actually get the news here. Like there was my social
• 1:05:54
  media. I don't get any news from anywhere. I have to watch the
• 1:05:57
  Canadian news.
• 1:05:58
  Casey Fatchett: And this was the admitted to, like, the UAPs were
• 1:06:02
  coming out of the ocean and that there was, like, but they
• 1:06:06
  didn't. And at this point, I'm like, You got to show us the
• 1:06:09
  pictures of the aliens at this point. Like, if you can't just,
• 1:06:11
  like, keep saying, like, this is, like, you can't have these
• 1:06:13
  conversations. And they're like, yeah, oh, we've got video of
• 1:06:15
  them, like, rising up out of the ocean and, like, that's them
• 1:06:18
  trying to escape. You're trying to get the hell out of here.
• 1:06:21
  They're like, Yeah, this place is fucking weird, man, yeah,
• 1:06:25
  dude.
• 1:06:27
  Tyson Martin: I mean, I'm gonna look that up though, yeah.
• 1:06:29
  Casey Fatchett: I was like, that came out, and there's just like,
• 1:06:32
  Are you shitting me? Like, like, there's been more and more of
• 1:06:36
  this the last few years where they've been like, declassifying
• 1:06:39
  stuff. And I'm like, Okay, you just got to show a you got to
• 1:06:43
  show us the pictures, or don't, don't bring it up anymore. Two
• 1:06:48
  aliens, if you're here, like, you either need to shit or get
• 1:06:51
  off the pot, because, like, this is, like, either you get
• 1:06:53
  involved and help us out, or you wipe us out. It's got to be one
• 1:06:57
  or the other, or you leave, yeah, like, just like, you
• 1:07:01
  can't, you can't have, you know, like, not being involved. Yeah.
• 1:07:06
  I mean, I've had experiences where, like, I saw, as a
• 1:07:09
  teenager, I saw lights while I was driving that were
• 1:07:15
  completely, there's no explanation I can give that had
• 1:07:19
  to be traveling at 1000s of miles an hour, low to the ground
• 1:07:27
  that I just there's no explanation. My mother was
• 1:07:29
  present at a UFO like near. She didn't see it. She saw the
• 1:07:35
  lights. And then all of a sudden, the Air Force arrived,
• 1:07:41
  30 minutes later. This was back in the 60s, so that's pretty
• 1:07:46
  fast for the Air Force to show up. And there was no, this is
• 1:07:51
  where she went to college, and it was behind her dorm, and
• 1:07:56
  there was no evidence of a crash, of anything. They said,
• 1:07:59
  Oh no, we had a plane crash. That's why we're here. And like,
• 1:08:02
  people went out, like they were gone the next day, and there was
• 1:08:07
  no evidence of any sort of, like, nothing hit the ground,
• 1:08:11
  like, and she's like, that's really weird. In like, the news
• 1:08:16
  came out and, like, interviewed all these kids who were like,
• 1:08:19
  What did you see? And they're like, we just saw, like, a bunch
• 1:08:21
  of bright lights, yeah, and then the Air Force showed up. So
• 1:08:27
  yeah, I believe in some crazy shit.
• 1:08:30
  Tyson Martin: I think if, if the aliens come down and we get a
• 1:08:34
  chance to hop on the spacecraft, take it just like the flight of
• 1:08:38
  the Navigator, Yeah, take that chance. Shout out to my my
• 1:08:41
  homie, Joey Kramer, the star of that show, grew up with him in
• 1:08:45
  Vancouver, really, yeah, yeah. We went to the same high school,
• 1:08:49
  same neighborhood, same friends, but, like, that's how I picture
• 1:08:53
  it, you know, cruising around, yeah? Like, I just, I just know
• 1:08:57
  there's more out there. You know, I don't preach it on
• 1:09:01
  people. They don't have to believe what I believe. I've
• 1:09:04
  just seen so much being in the back country of British
• 1:09:07
  Columbia, where it's dark, there's no one around, you see a
• 1:09:10
  lot of weird things in the sky that you can't explain. So you
• 1:09:14
  hear a lot of noises you can't explain, especially when you're
• 1:09:17
  200 kilometers away from the nearest road. Yeah, you haven't
• 1:09:21
  seen anybody for two days. So, you know, you get start to
• 1:09:26
  wonder, yeah,
• 1:09:29
  Casey Fatchett: I've never doubted that there's something
• 1:09:32
  else out there. And I'm happy to have those discussions. They're
• 1:09:38
  not philosophical discussions. There's scientific discussions,
• 1:09:41
  for me, like, there's just, like no way, in the in the how large
• 1:09:46
  the universe is, that there's not something else out there,
• 1:09:52
  exactly. Tyson, this is back to go on for days talk about this.
• 1:09:58
  I wanted to thank you for. Coming on the show. Oh, my
• 1:10:01
  pleasure. You're welcome to come back anytime. Where can people
• 1:10:05
  find you? Where can people find your podcasts?
• 1:10:08
  Tyson Martin: Podcasts on all major streaming platforms type
• 1:10:11
  in the life of vice so, pH, y, s, you'll find it on Apple.
• 1:10:15
  Spotify, anything that does allows my RSS feed to feed it. I
• 1:10:21
  try to put episodes on YouTube, it's kind of hit or miss if I
• 1:10:25
  put them up, threads is probably the best at Tyson Martin or at
• 1:10:32
  life period of period face for the podcast, those and
• 1:10:37
  Instagram, same, same handles. That's the best place to find
• 1:10:40
  me. You have any questions on any of the guests on the podcast
• 1:10:44
  you want to talk about coming on the podcast, whatever it is, hit
• 1:10:47
  me up. Tyson, at life of ice, calm.
• 1:10:49
  Casey Fatchett: I will put all those links in the Episode Notes
• 1:10:53
  again. Tyson, awesome. Thank you for being on the show.
• 1:10:55
  Tyson Martin: Oh man, my pleasure. It's been, it's been
• 1:10:57
  great. We'll get you, we'll get you on the life of ice and we'll
• 1:11:02
  switch hats here.
• 1:11:11
  Casey Fatchett: Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed my talk with
• 1:11:13
  Tyson Martin. Be sure to click on the Episode notes and follow
• 1:11:16
  Tyson and the life of vice podcast on social media. That's
• 1:11:19
  life of eyes, P, h, y, s, great conversations on that show. And
• 1:11:25
  while you are in the following mode, be sure to follow the
• 1:11:27
  nerdy photographer. If you didn't. Yeah, we're on a whole
• 1:11:30
  bunch of social media platforms, Instagram, tick tock threads,
• 1:11:33
  Reddit, and now we have a blue sky account at the nerdy photo,
• 1:11:38
  all one word, no underscores, dots or dashes. At the nerdy
• 1:11:43
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• 1:11:48
  any previous episode that we've put out there. Leave your
• 1:11:50
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• 1:11:53
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• 1:11:57
  hear covered on future episodes of the podcast. If you leave a
• 1:12:00
  review or tell a friend about the show you get a gold star. So
• 1:12:04
  yay. No, I'm going back to my meditation. Snug reasons I need
• 1:12:13
  to meditate, I can think of a few, until next time, everybody
• 1:12:16
  stay safe and stay nerdy. You.
• 1:12:30
  Unknown: Who's your heart been beating about? Get better. Get
• 1:12:35
  better. Get better. Get better. Listen, you.