Episode 26 - "Professional Photographers Roast Their Work!" | Shoot, Learn, Repeat

oh got your headphones on got headphones on are we rolling oh looks like we are

0:06

we're rolling rolling sweet looks like we is sweet as uh one of the old songs

0:12

may say so welcome back to Faith and Frames

0:17

howdy for all of our visual people welcome to the library welcome to the

0:22

library at Liberty Free Will Baptist Church Liberty library trying something

0:28

new uh hopefully proving to the world Jing shoot podcast dang near anywhere

0:34

yeah or lack thereof I mean you may not have a library may not have a library we do we'll see we're shooting

0:41

in it uh F cute might delete later one of those one of those things so we've

0:47

got a unique one no guest today just us two Bon heads just us two uh not going

0:54

to give any unsolicited dad advice no no hope you guys enjoyed that episode by

0:59

the way that uh that was fun it was fun I was very worried uh after after

1:07

rapping that one just thinking like I really hope nobody takes any

1:14

advice from us from what we just said because it's probably bad I I'm yeah we

1:21

we were watching the playback and I thought to myself the whole time I I don't know how this guy's a dad well so my whole thing was is like

1:30

okay don't take any advice on what I said to do yeah you're going to have to like do the opposite of what think about

1:37

what I shouldn't do I can be a model in the sense of I told you what I've done

1:42

and it's wrong same so just don't repeat that that was if you got any value from it maybe that was it it's really about

1:48

the only value I think you could have gotten from it speaking of value gonna give you a dad joke what do

1:56

you call an angry carrot

2:06

a top head I don't know a steamed vegetable I like that one that's pretty

2:11

good that's a good one like that that's a keeper that's a keeper steamed

2:17

vegetable just thinking of Veggie Tales there's probably a veggie tales book behind us somewhere on the Shelf I'm

2:22

sure there's a veggi tales book somewhere I also Veggie Tales um lowkey

2:27

like 90s oh we got V DVDs yeah we do it ain't in frame it is now for all of our

2:34

visual listeners here we have Veggie Tales Minnesota C wow C Larry the

2:39

Cucumber yeah oh okay okay okay listen I was a Veggie Tales kid through and through I never really got into it I

2:46

don't know how I missed that whole phase but my wife talks about it all the time and now re now Reese actually kind of

2:52

watches it sometimes so we had Veggie Tales you probably also don't remember Bible man remember I do not remember

2:57

Bible man see they have a cartoon Bible man now that my daughter stumbled upon on The Minnow app I know a lot of the

3:04

mothers out there right now are big on minnow because it's a great alternative to Coco melon which is just brain

3:09

rotting content yeah yeah yeah we we avoided Coco melon much like the plague

3:16

I say Johnny Johnny no papa yeah those are those are not good brain numbing

3:22

brain numbing yeah much like uh probably this podcast it could be brainn numbing to you there you go there

3:29

you go um so we got a unique one we are going to we always talk about how

3:35

progression takes place uh and with what we do and much like other things in life

3:41

you have probably never arrived at the destination of uh expert or you've never

3:50

truly got it figured out like you should constantly be learning and agree regardless of what you're doing yes the

3:57

second you think you're the best at XY fill in the blank you're going backwards you're going backwards because probably

4:04

somebody better and you've got something left to learn so yes we are going to

4:09

expose the crappiness oh of some of our early

4:15

photography that's going to be a tough one CU we both went and pulled some images from our past yeah some of them

4:21

are very cringeworthy here on this side of the table I don't know about yours but uh yeah they're not good they're not

4:26

good definitely um I can pick them apart but but that again I think that speaks to the growth that takes place yeah or I

4:34

mean I may have gotten worse you guys can decide um yeah I mean it's possible I I hesitate to say it's worse it's just

4:41

um it's definitely things that I didn't know that I now know a little more about

4:46

yeah uh and things that I would do differently um nice if put into the exact same situation which is actually

4:52

something I'd like to talk about later uh always shooting raw shooting raw and not deleting your images o okay we'll

5:00

get into that we'll get into that first let's thank our sponsor today's episode is sponsored by us Jared and Garrett

5:06

here at motion Creative Media folks this episode we are talking digital images

5:11

and Jared and I are actually in the process of releasing some digital assets

5:16

yep and what we want to do for our audience for our listeners and for our Watchers out there and this gives you guys a chance to put our stuff to the

5:24

test we are offering a free video L yep think of a filter yeah think of a filter

5:29

uh like an Instagram filter yeah like an Instagram filter or if if you're using Cap Cod or whatever if you have the

5:35

magic AI Coler tool you can press that and it'll it'll apply a look to your image so this is just a look for your

5:40

video we're giving it away for free and it is labeled the blue collar L Yep this is something that we designed from a lot

5:47

of the industry that we worked in the construction industry right this is again a litmus test for our listeners

5:52

for our viewers take the L used on your footage I'd love to see some of your feedback oh yeah and would love to see

5:57

some of your videos that you've colored with it actually works on iPhone even it even works on iPhone so whatever camera

6:03

you shoot on whatever phone you shoot on as long as it is a standard profile image which if you're shooting on an

6:09

iPhone it should be yep um it should work there you go yeah download it download it it's going to be in the link

6:15

in the description below there you go sweet so meet and ters Jared get us the

6:20

meet and ters there you go so I wna I want to start with something that I read on threads today you're a threader now I

6:27

like that um I don't know I'm uh I'm dabbling in it we'll see we'll see how it goes but uh so this

6:34

guy put out a TW uh it's not a tweet it's not TW he put he posted on threads

6:39

this morning and said don't let social media guide the way that you photograph

6:46

went on to continue to say one day Instagram will be long dead and all

6:53

that's kind of matter is the art that you created that may be hard to fathom an

7:00

absence of Instagram but you don't have to look too far back in the sands of time to think of Vine oh some of our

7:07

listeners are going to remember Vine some are not I would argue that we wouldn't have Tik Tok today uh which we

7:12

may not have Tik Tok tomorrow but we wouldn't have Tik Tok today I don't think if Vine didn't already exist it

7:17

was sixc blurs yeah and it is no longer a thing well and Vine still has such an

7:24

impact on Tik Tok that you now see vine compilations true on Tik Tok which I I love because I was a Vine lover well you

7:31

can go on YouTube and search vine compilations if you don't know what Vine is if you're too young and you don't know what Vine is maybe you miss that

7:37

whole window it was tick tocking before Tick Tock was ticking and talking go to YouTube right now search vine

7:44

compilations and you will get a great feel the limit was six seconds you could not have a clip longer than six seconds

7:51

um I remember those days yeah it kind of ushered in short form content and again I would argue that we probably wouldn't have Instagram reals because we wouldn't

7:57

have Tik Tok if V hadn't already laid the groundw work point being though overarching Point yes fine no longer

8:03

exists so if you are creating a photo or

8:09

a video specifically to perform well on platform fill in the blank to get likes

8:15

and Views I would question I would ask your

8:22

I would ask you to question yourself are you creating for the right reason cuz I would say you're not I

8:29

would say you're not because if you think about if Instagram were gone tomorrow

8:36

yeah would you still have taken the photo that you posted you know what I mean so it's like are you creating for a

8:43

platform are you creating because you enjoy the process this particular photo fulfills you whatever

8:52

yeah we took a lot of photos uh like like you do when you start out yep um

9:00

very not proud of them at this stage of my career let's dive into these because I know our viewers are probably just

9:06

chomping at the bit to see how terrible are we going to mention the elephant in the room in that video or we going to

9:13

table that for another discussion we'll table that for another one we'll keep it photo Centric today okay um I don't know

9:19

if I'm ready to to rehash say it's out there I still I'm not going to tell

9:24

anybody where it is but uh let's talk photos and and specifically to your first point I'll go and throw myself

9:30

under the bus because I am a fan of a particular style of

9:35

Photography um and really it's it's more so a a color scheme than it is a style

9:40

it's the till orange color scheme which very popular in you know big movies it's popular obviously on social media

9:46

however when I first got into photography got my first camera right I

9:52

leaned super duper heavy into it most do most do and a common mistake and I was

9:58

not pulling it off correctly but I'm going to pull up an image here uh for all of our Audio Only listeners and

10:04

Jared I'm going to show it to you here over across the table and our viewers can see it on your

10:10

screen this is an image that I took in Telo Plains Tennessee um I was traveling

10:15

for the industry that I was in at the time and really leaning into that teal orange look that everyone's trying to

10:22

achieve right now which the reason till Orange exists there's psychology behind it the color pal it makes sense you

10:29

would like yeah it it makes sense however everything that Garrett Benjamin we was doing at that point in time

10:35

though was till Orange and I would dare say that my orange was not even Orange it's more of like a cotton candy rose

10:40

gold type deal right um but this vid or this particular photo not excessively

10:47

proud of for a couple of reasons and and number one reason obviously is the color scheme did not nail that at all but you

10:54

mentioned something off camera that is also true um compositionally I don't know what the heck I was thinking yeah

11:00

with this image a I cooked the colors so we we've gotten that out of the way we cooked it that just means everything looks nuclear and and not realistic way

11:08

saturated way saturated my Blues are like actually almost falling apart I can

11:13

see pixels from where I nuked them so much um but also compositionally

11:18

speaking my Horizon he it's not level now that I'm looking at it again um I'm

11:23

not really following any compositional rules like the rule of thirds I have nothing right lined up in this image and

11:30

this it look like the tower was on a on a vertical third yeah it's on a vertical third but as far as like any

11:36

intersecting lines if if you're aware of the the rule of thirds and if not we can talk about that later um yeah this image

11:43

is just not working and I know at the time when I posted this I was like this

11:49

is a banger you were proud of it I was proud of it and I pulled this image up first because in that moment in time you

11:55

you mentioned the the threads uh social media post there at the time I can go

12:01

ahead and tell you full transparency I was shooting this one for Instagram or for Facebook um because I knew it was a

12:07

popular style of the time I wanted people to see that hey I've got a camera and I'm I'm now newly into photography

12:13

and I can do this till Orange thing that everybody loves and now looking back at it you know klie this was probably back

12:19

in 2018 or 2019 so we five six years later I'm like n dude you didn't have it

12:25

well so I would I would kind of piggybacking off of that thread and not necessarily creating for a social media

12:32

platform yeah I will caution any new photographer right now Trends are going to come and go yeah

12:39

they are I mean I have technically been shooting photos and editing photos now

12:46

since like 2016 is now so several years and even in

12:52

that reasonably short time span I can name you multiple oh yeah color trends

12:58

oh yeah um that are no more yeah so

13:04

you're going to want to experiment because you're going to need to try a bunch of different things to figure out

13:09

what you like right and the quicker you can do that and the more you do that or the only way you can really arrive at

13:16

what I would call your style is to put the Reps in it is to shoot anything and

13:22

everything it is to try these editing Styles try to emulate that creator that you really like oh I love the way they

13:29

process their greens whatever it is try to do that you will eventually end at the

13:37

style that you prefer to edit and from then on out it's still going to change it's it's never going to be like a

13:43

constant thing but it's just going to be like subtle refinement at that point well you dial it in I mean here's the thing at the end of the day I still love

13:50

the till orange color scheme it's still you know for how many years we've

13:55

existed been a comp complimentary sche ande they go well together but I've

14:02

learned how to dial it I learned how to dial it in this image obviously is a horrible example of till Orange um and I

14:09

have another one that I I'll show just while we're on this whole till orange color scheme ordeal that I showed you

14:15

earlier off camera um back when I had been experimenting in the autophotography realm yeah folks this is

14:22

an image of a car that I owned back in the day and I was experimenting with Automotive photography at the time I was

14:27

going to car shows and shooting cars I was shooting this one out in the driveway at all times and again leaning

14:33

heavily into that teal orange scheme the oranges are so nuked on this image Jared

14:40

if you if you look carefully and for our viewers out there if you look carefully at this image funky with your brake

14:45

calipers I was say specifically with the calipers and the rotors y the brake dust on my rotors because I had not washed

14:52

the car at that point time is now rose gold yeah where I had look an iPhone

14:58

looking like an iPhone I had I had cranked the heck out of that image the white car is not even white it's teal

15:05

yeah it's a teal car now um I can see the trees in the background are like pink red they're not even orange and

15:12

again the The Blues from the the BMW logo are not even like BMW blue here's the question I would have for you that

15:19

it's just I look at this image and and this is embarrassing this is an embarrassing moment in time for me don't

15:24

let it be embarrassing because now you you've you've grown okay so that's what I would say I hope I've gr so I would

15:31

ask you do you did you shoot that and did you shoot raw I did shoot that as a raw image and I know because I actually

15:38

shot this as an HDR okay you're viewing an HDR image right now okay so my my and

15:44

this is something I'm going to have to rely on the audience to hold you accountable I want you I want to

15:49

challenge you to go find that raw image dig deep on whatever hard drive it's buried on for that one and edit it now

15:57

with your current skill set your current Style your current knowledge of all the things

16:02

of Photography and editing I think I could do that yeah I'd be interested to see how different that works I mean the

16:08

composition is what it is I think the composition's fine there's no there's nothing too terribly wrong with that composition yeah I mean it it is what it

16:14

is the the colors though yeah I was nuking it and again I had two things I had just discovered til orange I

16:21

apparently had just discovered HDR which is just image stacking for those of you who don't know um and yeah I abs

16:28

absolutely cooked this so uh very very embarrassing there I hope I've improved since then the uh so that it kind

16:37

of I feel like when most people start into photography specifically when you start

16:43

editing images whether you're editing your jpegs or editing raw you're going to typically end up in one of two camps

16:51

M you're going to end up in the scared to push anything one way or the other or

16:58

you're going to be h till orange or you're going to be very heavy with this color that you're trying to emulate

17:03

right so you're there's two ends of the spectrum and I feel like that's where people typically end

17:09

up uh starting out I started out with the uh reserved approach okay number one

17:15

from Jared here's an image which compositionally honestly I'm fine with I

17:21

have uh Revisited this and uh I think I think it's fine it's an image of

17:28

downtown Greenville yes okay again I aired on the safety side of things if

17:34

you notice even on my phone this is and I we'll throw this on the screen so that you can look at it but is a very neutral

17:43

yeah white balance very Neal so almost a little cool almost yeah it I would I

17:49

would hesitate and say yes and there got a lot of blue in the image there's a lot of sky in there for those of you who can't see it I would say

17:56

that this image if I were to go dig out the raw file I would edit this in a completely

18:04

different style um and I would be I wouldn't be as timid to push some of the Hues and the

18:11

colors well that one to me if if you had just pulled it out like like you did and and shown it on the street I'd be like

18:17

oh that's a it's a JPEG it looks like a JPEG of a JPEG technically the exposure

18:23

is okay like highlights are there all that um the green is green like digital

18:30

sensors do I would fix that I would edit this in a warmer fashion yeah um now

18:35

well you want it to have a a warm feel to it it's obviously in the the afternoon hours and it's your hometown

18:41

so you probably have warm fuzzies about it there you go so yeah you end up in one of the two camps and it sounds like

18:47

we have hit both of those entities today you went really heavy with the coloring for early on and I was like I can't push

18:55

anything so I'm not going to like yeah I was afraid to and so you're breaking colors hey but like what ends up

19:01

ultimately happening if you stick with it is you end up finding that happy medium yeah well you find a happy medium

19:07

and I think one thing too that I personally have experienced and and you've just without even realizing it uh

19:13

given another example I think both of us now with every image that I take I also think about the story behind the image I

19:20

go ahead and tell you whenever I was shooting the the water tower picture and and the the card picture here there's no

19:25

story behind those I was like I'm going to blast these put them on social media media and they're going to get millions of likes and followers like that because

19:31

I was following that scheme that I had seen working um this is why following Trends especially when you don't have a

19:39

skill set for those Trends probably not a good idea um and I'm I'm a personal example of that but now we we look more

19:45

at the story of things because you just said had I re-edited that that image I would probably do it warmer oh yeah and

19:51

I know you want to do it warmer because you feel warm about your hometown well to me it doesn't part of part of editing

20:00

is you've got to immerse the viewer in how you saw that yes and so one of yeah

20:08

one of the ways that you do that is through your color scheme for instance you think of like movies okay and these

20:15

are very like pushed examples yeah but like the Matrix yep very green very Green Well it invokes a certain feeling

20:22

or you think like if you ever watch the show the Ozark yep very blue very blue cuz it's a cool it's a cold feel whereas

20:30

like a Mad Max or something like that very warm and cooked and cooked and so it's like you you can invoke a feeling

20:38

and you you're going to regardless if you realize it or not but like you're going to invoke a feeling based upon the

20:43

way that you process images and so like if I saw if I wanted someone to see this image today again there's probably too

20:49

much head room now that I look at it but this is a small

20:56

quaint appalachin small town that I would want someone to get a warm and fuzzy about and I didn't I didn't sell

21:03

that with with the with the look of the image so yeah still at the end of the day very good compositionally and I

21:09

think the image holds up even even color-wise far far greater than my earlier examples

21:15

did let me oh I didn't even show you this one off camera but this is one that

21:21

I definitely want to address because this was absolutely a trend um if you guys haven't noticed by now Garrett

21:28

whenever first started was trying to follow some Trends uh for our Audio Only

21:33

listeners this image that I'm now showing to Jared and our viewers is an

21:38

image within within an image this was a trend I believe back in 2018 where everybody was removing the lens from

21:44

their camera and shooting through the lens with another lens and if you can't see it that's probably hard to Fathom um

21:52

but again Garrett was hopping on a trend and there is nothing about this image that invokes any sort of feeling other

21:58

then what in the heck was I doing well I mean so Art's always you know it's

22:03

subjective for sure um storywise that's a difficult one to

22:09

to even historically you know attempt to yeah I think in the middle of that image there's like a a propeller a gigantic

22:16

boat propeller I I think I was at noris Dam in Knoxville again was traveling um saw the propeller I was like hey I can

22:23

shoot this propeller inside of the lens of another lens I guess one thing that you could say without even doing it I

22:29

was following a frame within a frame yeah mentality um again didn't know that that I was doing that but it's a frame

22:35

within a frame poorly done at that um a lot of ugly hand in there yeah this

22:41

image just does nothing and this was actually a point in time where I didn't really push any colors uh that also

22:46

looks like a pretty standard jpeg with some crappily applied vignette yeah

22:51

you're kind of scared too like you really are you're so like especially here's the here's the really cool thing about raw images and ra or photographer

22:59

friends are going to understand this yes but a raw image we're not just using that as like

23:05

a a crappy adjective it is the raw output of what the digital sensors saw

23:11

and what that means to the person who's never saw a raw image maybe we should put it before and after somewhere but

23:16

like what that means is it is very grayscale even like most of the

23:22

saturation removed a lot of your colors are nowhere near the true color the

23:28

information is a whole lot more more inform you got way more flexibility um with with all of your

23:35

colors and your white balance all those things you should certainly shoot raw but when you first start editing

23:41

raw you saw the before and you see where you took that image to and you're like

23:47

oh my gosh I have arrived at the destination because the transformation is so vast but what you it takes years

23:54

and well it's different for everybody but it takes time yeah it takes get to the point of you're like that wasn't a

24:00

Finish Line right yes it's a drastic transformation but that wasn't the Finish Line in the

24:06

sense of uh all the colors and that information um and so like that's something that's really like I said when

24:13

when when I first started out shooting raw that image I remember the I can remember the raw image being so like far

24:22

in between that destination of that thata oh my gosh I've already done so

24:27

much to this there's no way I can do more fall this I cannot push this green

24:32

anymore like it's just I can't do it and so and this looks so much better than the raw image it's done you know and so

24:40

I feel like that happens a lot and and I'll even say this like I I can see that

24:45

yeah in people who are like beginning their photography Journey um I'm always hesitant to like reach out and say

24:51

anything um because it's one of those things where I feel like you're going to learn on your own if you wouldn't have to learn on your own um but it's like I

24:58

I see that with even people who are just now starting out in photography it's like they're in that camp of afraid to

25:05

push it this looks Fair standard yeah uh well they may still be in the camp where they're shooting jpeg they may not even

25:11

realize what raw is yeah and so it's uh it's it's all part of the journey and it

25:16

always cracks me up uh to look back at Old images yeah so if you notice the

25:21

second image is a completely different uh genre

25:26

and style which I would also recommend when you first start

25:32

out literally shoot anything and everything yes all the Styles absolutely

25:37

you got to find what you like yeah you're going to you got to find maybe you're the you're destined to be a sports photographer uh I can tell you if

25:45

this was what I was you're a bird photographer maybe yeah shoot everything you're on your way to Nat Geo shoot

25:50

anything and everything because you're going to learn like I really don't like shooting waterfalls yeah uh or I really

25:57

don't like working with subjects and so portraits are not my thing you know so it's like you're going to learn those things but you're only going to learn

26:03

those things if you so like dialing it in from there here's an image uh my little sister is her eighth grade night

26:10

okay at Chuy do Middle School it's basketball woo basketball uh there is

26:16

nothing um great about this image first off I cut her foot off which I mean she

26:22

was probably moving pretty quickly in eighth grade probably not Kye pretty slow no she was fast but I mean again

26:27

it's it's it's e8th grade and and I had all the room like okay there was no reason to have chopped her foot off first off so

26:34

compositionally yeah um processing wise you still pretty scared very scared to

26:40

do anything uh the other thing and this is something that you are so scared of

26:45

when you start manipulating that exposure triangle I was so afraid of bumping my

26:51

ISO so that I could have a higher shutter if you notice want noise if you notice that basketball is not Frozen no

27:00

it's blurry yeah you were shooting pretty slow shutter speed it should well her hair's blurry too it should not be

27:06

with Sports Photography unless that's a mood you're trying to sell look at any Sports Illustrated

27:11

images though like yeah those are pretty crisp they're pretty crisp The The J the goal of that photo is to freeze that

27:18

moment in action so um yeah I was afraid to raise my ISO

27:27

mhm with which I was afraid for good reason CU you always hear like if you raise your ISO you're going to introduce

27:34

more noise and noise is bad right like you don't want noise once it's in there you can't get it out all these things so

27:39

it's like that was why I was afraid of it I was afraid of that monster in that closet yeah we hear all those horror stories but you've got to specifically

27:49

with indoor and sports and um most gymnasiums are lit so poorly yep if

27:55

you're going to freeze that action yeah raise that you're going to have to raise that or get a faster lens well even

28:01

still like that's going to present its own challenges from a focus standpoint like an AF you know like can you do is

28:08

your camera able to keep up with that subject lot of limitations with either of those yeah so it's I in that

28:13

particular instance um I was way too afraid to push the iso I if I had to go

28:20

back and look at that raw image I would say the metadata would say that I probably didn't go above like 800 right

28:25

which your shutter speed was probably like one over 80 yeah I mean way too slow for what I was trying to do yeah when her hair when her hair is moving at

28:32

that point in time and the hair is blurry you're probably pretty slow shter speed just you know things that you learn um and then again edit

28:41

wise there's nothing wrong with it I say it's just it's a standard it looks like a standard Prof but but it it doesn't

28:48

there's nothing about this that I could say yeah that's a Jared image right yeah there's no style to it but at

28:56

the end of the day like I guess one advantage to that versus like what I'm looking at over here on my side of the

29:01

table is like you're able to slowly walk yours in like mine totally have to be redone to even be postable nowadays

29:08

because there well I mean I wouldn't post that either I like cooked it like a a wellone leathery ball glove steak yeah

29:15

you can't uncook the steak right yeah you can't uncook the steak so I now have to like start from scratch if I can find

29:21

those raw images uh which you've challenged me to do see I I cooked it hard at the at the beginning it looks

29:26

like you had more of a a walk-in progression with your editing style yeah which again I think there's advantages

29:32

to that uh you don't have to look at these and well neither your yourself neither of which are at anything that I

29:39

would consider finished today right right and so that's kind of the ultimate overarching theme of today is like look

29:45

I took this image and I truly remember being very proud of that image like I sent these or I showed these to my

29:51

little sister it was her eighth grade night and she like everybody in the family loved them which I don't know

29:57

maybe that was false uh false like you know pump UPS so to speak because it was family yeah but no I remember being very

30:04

proud of that image oh yeah and really thinking like I had done something with that image Kye get your phone out we're

30:09

gonna dial up SI right now I mean it was but again it just speaks

30:16

to what I'm going to refer to as growth yeah your your image right there is

30:21

probably far closer to getting featured in Sports Illustrated than mine is uh to getting featured in Motor Trend I'll go

30:27

ahead and say that ahead and say that we'll see we'll see so we started making a progression

30:32

though and you know we we've bashed a couple of these images and I do want to talk about the progression that took

30:38

place specifically with my photography because this is an element of my photography that still shines through to

30:45

this day y um obviously better at it now than I was back in the day and still

30:50

continuing to dial it in but I discovered something and this

30:55

even translates into my video work that I loved I found

31:01

mood okay and what do I mean by mood what I mean by mood is a a darker more

31:08

contrasty image Y and uh the image I'm going to show you guys here for our viewers and then Jared across the table

31:14

this was an image that I took out near where's Valley I believe in Pigeon Ford just an old schoolhouse okay uh the day

31:21

itself was already very moody it it was about St yeah about storm that day actually uh came a big storm and I shot

31:28

the image and I remember looking at the raw and I was like dang this is already pretty dark and I started editing it and

31:33

editing it and I kept getting darker and darker and darker I started out warmer yeah and I was like h no that's too

31:38

happy so I brought it back to more neutral white balance but started

31:43

pushing blacks a little more towards black uh and more contrasting so I fell in love with mood and I think this is

31:50

the image that did it but again this is a this is a an element of my editing style that still shines through today

31:57

yeah where with this image I was like I think I'm finally getting the hang of this a little bit like this image is

32:03

nothing great I'm not going to print it and I'm sure not going to try to sell it to anybody but I found a style that I

32:11

really wanted to lean into and that's to your point that you made a little while ago you eventually find those styles

32:16

that you like and you just start honing it in so this was one image where I was like yeah I can look at this today and

32:22

although it's not my best PE piece of work ever I'm happy with it you're starting to figure things out

32:28

this was a learning a learning point for me where I discovered a style that I liked and then I could coat away it

32:35

maybe the heavy tail orange looks a little bit uh and focus more so on the mood well so specifically with overcast

32:41

days it is really really really hard to do warm yes because it it

32:48

quickly affects way too much of the image yes well it doesn't make sense subconsciously either if I'm seeing

32:54

storm clouds why the heck would I be seeing a war like a warm Sunset right so there's again another thing that kind of

33:01

speaks into the story yeah and invoking the feel that you would want a viewer to to

33:08

feel from that image image make sense right I would agree with that

33:13

um I uh I need to go f back and find this

33:20

image uh because this was from 2017 when my wife and I went to

33:26

Washington DC woo I took some decent images in there going back um but

33:33

processing not not not on point as it as the youngsters would say this is an

33:39

image of uh the back of the White House nice very very close to dusk so

33:47

like that's part of the reason why everything fell blue yep um yeah very very blue image compositionally I had

33:54

figured some things out I realized what I like composition there is great I enjoy this everything's Level D I'd dare

34:00

say you even started cooking your colors a little more I did started pushing them bad boys and uh but here's the thing I

34:07

need to go back and find this image it's too dark overall say we can't see the detail in the trees at all can't see the

34:13

detail in the trees and color-wise it's just the white balance is just not where it needs to be um I would dare say that

34:19

would look great black and white it does look great whack and white I've got it black and white but specifically I would

34:25

like to challenge myself with the color aspect of because I think I think this one could be a pretty image yeah I like

34:31

that competition wise it's great the White House is obviously being led to with your leading lines we can tell it's

34:38

the subject uh very good so what what year was that though what year did you 2017 so you you had started discovering

34:46

a few things in yeah I'll show you I'll show you an image that was also in 2017 that I I'm actually I would change very

34:54

very very little if I had this raw image in front of me today um sometimes you just kind of get things

35:00

right if anything I would probably simplify the scene a bit Yeah like there's a lot going

35:07

on oh yeah the highway yeah bridge I would even probably move the bridge over

35:12

closer to a third a little bit Yeah so like I would change very little processing wise I had started to get my

35:18

style now now I would probably push a little more cool into the shadows and

35:25

maybe a little more warmth into the highlights so like just just furthering the the differences between the two man

35:31

the mountains back there look beautiful though where the the clouds are over the top of them that shadow on top of the mountains for Audio Only listeners this

35:38

is a local bridge and Highway near where we live in tuscum so like I would now throw a mask on that there's a shadow

35:45

capping the mountains on there not there's not enough contrast right to

35:51

show so I'm saying I like the shadow up there and and it's a very cool element

35:56

because it outlines the top of the the mountains all the way through the image that's cool i' started to find my color style I I still prefer a little more

36:03

true to life yep green and yellow than you do um I kind of mute mine a little bit Yeah you you you typically remove

36:10

more of that and heck this is something that I could talk for days about like eyesight your eye may be more sensitive

36:17

it could be to the orange spectrum and that's why you're like no this feels right it could be whereas I'm like no it

36:23

needs more you know so it's like it's one of those things but like for green specifically and our area in the spring

36:28

and the summer and all the way up until the foliage changes in the fall is very green yes all of our trees are

36:36

deu everything's got green grass that's probably why I mute them a little more too digital sensors do not handle that

36:43

pigment well it literally looks nuclear it looks like um it looks like slime it does it looks like a radioactive slime

36:51

nin turtle green and so again I would change very little in this particular image yeah you could print that today

36:57

people would probably buy it I don't know about all that um it's a good image but very good image but I had started to

37:04

figure some things out yeah um and my style is very similar to this still to this day I was going say that looks like

37:09

a a recent Jared image and you're saying that was 2017 MH yeah so you've you

37:15

found something you that you liked pretty early on then and kind of stuck with it and you've honed it from there I would change some colors and stuff and

37:22

again I think the scene is kind of busy uh in some instance maybe there's too much Road in it mhm but over overall I

37:27

mean again you start walking these things in you start figuring out what uh

37:33

what you like like one of the one of the really one of my favorite photographers to follow uh on YouTube and short stash

37:41

oh well yeah that gu no it's James Pops I love pops he's a he's uh in England I

37:48

believe yep but um travels all around the world and his whole thing his whole

37:53

thing with shooting photography is he wants to blend the world of man-made objects and

38:02

nature he's not a nature photographer he's not a street photographer but he likes to find man-made elements like

38:07

even light PS to him yeah whereas like I would see it as like maybe an eyesore he's like no this is a story of how man

38:14

has interacted with this scene and I'm going to highlight these elements and so like he finds the Perfect Blend of

38:20

of man-made objects and nature yeah uh and it's a really cool style but that is

38:26

his style that is his thing he learned I'm not a car photographer James could take great pictures of cars right he

38:34

could take great portraits yeah it's just not what he does and so like it just kind of

38:40

furthers like one of our points that we made today is is you've got to

38:45

find your style and what you enjoy shooting now there are people who exclusively shoot cars yeah Automotive

38:53

photography is one of my favorites I don't shoot a lot of it but I love aut right so that's a thing now could that

39:01

person technically shoot portraits absolutely it's the same thing You' got the same three variables it's exposure

39:07

triangle working a camera is working a camera but they have found that they enjoy um

39:15

and uh prefer to shoot that style yeah I still I haven't found my subject matter

39:23

that I like if I have anything it'd be a loose it'd be a really loose interpretation and and description but

39:28

like I prefer like what I would brand as

39:33

documentary photography yeah I want to basically be this fly on the wall

39:40

whether that's in street photography covering an event uh photographing a job site whatever I want

39:47

to be this fly on thewall that's letting things unfold and my job at that point is to nail exposure nail composition and

39:56

evoke some sort of em because the story's already in front of you yeah now I I I'm not a great portrait

40:02

photographer because posing is something that I'm weak at yeah and it's it's like I know what I want to see but I don't

40:08

know how to verbally tell you what to do you know so it's like I get kind of like anxious in in some of those situation so

40:14

I just I strictly run out of ideas well I mean so there's there's only so many ways that I can pose you right here but I've worked with other photographers who

40:20

like oh that's like that's their strength look at Melissa we we've had Melissa on the show before like she's a

40:26

pH phenomenal same with the nuns like wedding you know like when they're posing it's like they are so good at

40:33

that and it's like whereas I just want to be that fly on the wall and it's like

40:39

you guys tell him a joke or whatever and I'm going to capture this this candid

40:44

laugh I was going to say it's it's more so it's it's a difference in process like actual shooting of like they are

40:50

making an image yeah you know they're they're making that image happen uh versus like when you're documenting

40:56

you're literally information I end up with a lot more throwaway images right we have throw

41:01

images but because it's like okay this this didn't the story is there yeah the story's already there and you know for

41:07

me specifically like I find my style to be a blend of like Street and I'm just

41:13

going to call it mundane everyday life y I love the mundane things yeah you shoot

41:18

trash cans I literally shoot trash cans I I love trash can they're fun they don't talk back I don't have to pose

41:24

them like it's pretty easy stuff go gas stations another one favor oh yeah if you guys followed our our story over the

41:30

past couple of weeks I actually got heckled by our local police officers for shooting gas stations on a very rainy

41:35

night at 11:45 p.m. interesting um because I love gas stations it is a bit sketchy behaviorally I was an all black

41:42

and it looked like I was scoping the place out yeah not a good look not a good look but we had a good laugh I told them

41:48

about a very crappy podcast they could listen to yeah if they needed to get through their shift there you go we had a good time um but yeah I I like the

41:55

mundane uh everyday lifestyle M slash street photography stuff and then you

42:00

know I throw in a few portraits here and there whenever people actually ask me um then obviously we do what we do for a

42:06

living but right uh one image too that I'll show and it actually is a portrait uh this was of our friends Josh and

42:13

Brittney this was probably one of the first like couples sessions that I ever did and this is another element that

42:20

still shines through in my work today and that is more of a muted look yeah this is where I discovered that I like

42:27

muted stuff right um I know that is fall yeah it's fall the the greens though

42:32

I've dialed them back the yellows obviously I've dialed back because her shirt was like a mustard yellow now it's

42:37

more of like a desaturated mustard yellow yep um blacks are raised a little bit and that was pretty popular back

42:43

then too was raising the blacks but I realized through this image and again I'm still pretty proud of this image today um there's some things that I

42:49

would do differently yeah but the the style still bleeds through in in a lot

42:55

of my like current curent work yeah um the the muted tone so very proud of this

43:00

image and again this was just the progression that I finally started making you know color-wise right of okay

43:05

I kind of like those muted tones I like the the contrasti image I like a darker image because this is for a portrait

43:13

session decently dark image um it's not it's not what I would call Moody by any

43:18

means but it's not moody but it's not like you know your highkey bright and N Style either you know there are people

43:23

who who do that and do that well and lean into that yeah this was not a bright andery portrait well but I don't

43:29

know that I would so so that I guess that's kind of always the um that's kind of always the the goal and the wish and

43:36

the desire at least as you continue your photography Journey if you stick with it like you're going to want people

43:43

to essentially work with you and book you based upon your style yeah they got

43:48

to know you for something they got to know you for something and and perfect world is when the client comes to you and like I want your style like I'm

43:56

wanting you because of your style so like it's difficult when someone will say hey I really like to work with you

44:03

but I would really prefer you to edit these images in this style and it's like

44:09

that's not what I do right now that's not to say that I can't do it because again it's just a matter of preference

44:15

technically once you once you hone those skills in and learn how to operate your camera we could do any look but that we

44:20

want to you could do any look but I think we're better stewards though yeah if we don't and send you to the person

44:26

who does yeah like okay look I I'm not your bright and eie person but I know the person these three photographers are

44:34

them I think one that comes to mind that I know has the style dialed in um is I'll take Bonnie for example one of our

44:40

local portrait photographers Bonnie's style whenever I look at it it just invokes this sense of nostalgia like

44:47

it's it's very film likee actually her images are very film likee which obviously I love shooting film and

44:52

that's another topic for another day but Bonnie's images are so so nostalgic

44:58

feeling I love that about what she does I'd like to actually have her as a guest yeah but yeah she has that style and I

45:04

know that people go to Bonnie because they want that you know they want that with their portrait photography well so

45:10

like this is kind of how I ended up at the I'm not going to call it a destination because we opened up by

45:16

saying that you're never there yeah but like where I'm at today this is how I've gotten here specifically with

45:22

photography that someone has paid me for mhm my whole thing is like I have tried

45:27

so hard to stay away from Trends yeah simply because I'm I'm so I guess to a

45:34

fault in some cases Forward Thinking in the sense of like when these people's grandkids look at these images yeah

45:41

there was a phase mhm I'm going to call it the Oompa Loompa face neither of us he neither of

45:48

us dabbled in that water thank God we didn't but it happened it was it

45:54

happened and there's still some of it out there today like it was very common and what I mean by the Oompa Loompa is

45:59

like green is almost gray yep and people looked like Donald Trump there you go

46:05

likea looma watch Willy Wonka orange so like that's a phase yeah I know 30 40

46:13

years from now when that image surfaces at the family table or whatever they're going to be wondering what in the heck

46:20

yeah happened here M all you pumpkin latte lovers out there sweetheart that

46:25

was just the style you know it's like okay I have tried to I have tried and

46:31

and I know there still be there's going to be we have our PSL and our Oompa Loompa look going on I have tried to

46:36

model my photography after something that I'm hoping is yeah kind of Timeless

46:43

right doesn't lean too far into a Trent now I've started to sprinkle my style in

46:48

there but like my style I've tried to model after something that I'm hopefully

46:53

gon to be timeless right I think both of us nowadays like I'm I really like to try to emulate film um because there's a

46:59

reason why well film's like the most timeless absolutely it's the most timeless and I I love and obviously now

47:05

that we're both film Shooters as well um like I want my digital image to look

47:11

like that well and so honestly this could be a totally EP a totally solo

47:18

episode on its own everything we've talked about today yeah has

47:24

been talking about colar images yeah colar and processing and styles and Trends and

47:30

finding you right through color M I have this thought

47:37

MH that black and white oh may be the most pure form of

47:44

photography I think like a camera company would agree with that and Leica if you're out there I can't wait till

47:49

you sponsor the podcast send us a couple of n10 or M11 monocrom put that to the

47:54

test well so black and white right if you nail exposure

48:02

MH the viewer has one thing to do they look at the subject we're going to plate

48:09

that because that's going to be another episode you remove any distraction like it I mean that that can get really deep

48:14

really quickly black and white also can save some some bad colors too where

48:20

you've got like black and White's a hero well it can be like if you've got a situation where you've got 14 different

48:25

colors of Lights like the comp but the but the colors are bad Cas in point go

48:31

shoot a concert seriously go shoot a concert go shoot a wedding reception where there's a bunch of RGB lights and

48:37

everything else and it's just it's difficult right it's difficult because from a white balance standpoint it's like what do I do if I do this this

48:43

looks like I icy blue yep if I do this this is like super red it's magenta now

48:50

and the red light hit the bride's skin and now she looks this looks like a she

48:56

looks like a tomato looks like a tomato black and white that sucker can't tell it all you have are luminance values yep

49:02

that's it whites and blacks Shadows you have that's it so it's like yeah I could

49:07

I do want to have a Black and White episode maybe we shoot that episode in black and white wow ah now we're getting

49:13

introspective here yeah that'll be fun uh yeah that could be something sh we'll shoot an all bdub episode for you guys

49:21

um do you have any more images I no okay the I've got more but I won't

49:28

I won't bore the uh we might we might sprinkle them on the Instagram one day

49:34

courage they probably won't be on the motion page um so really the overarching theme of this episode a was so that we

49:40

can bash ourselves and publicly humiliate ourselves with our our past work uh more importantly though just to

49:47

encourage everyone out there that may be beginning into photography maybe maybe you just got your camera yesterday maybe

49:53

you're still shooting on your phone I don't care what you're shooting on as long as you're shooting but but just to encourage like everybody starts at a

49:59

zero you guys have seen my zero was a pretty hefty zero yeah uh not proud of a

50:05

lot of the things that I shot in the past but I've improved hopefully hopefully have improved well you've

50:11

learned things and you you've you you you've progressed yeah I've progressed and and learned things that I do like

50:16

about styles that I don't like about Styles maybe things that we do like about the subject matter so regardless

50:22

we've we've been on this journey now for quite a few years you're dang near 10 years into it yeah I'm getting closest

50:29

to that I think 2017 so yeah almost 10 years about seven for me the the thing

50:34

is is like you've never you've

50:40

never reached that destination because that destination doesn't exist and so you're constantly going to be learning

50:46

things and I think it's very very very important and I I would enjoy to sit down and talk with somebody who's maybe

50:52

not figured out their style right you've got to learn how to interpret an image for instance

51:01

if you have a photographer that you really like you love their style you love the way they compose things they

51:08

expose things you love their color processing all these things understanding the why yep that's

51:15

a skill that you you slowly develop yeah understanding why you like it and then how it works at first it's like oh this

51:21

is visually appealing to me I want to emulate that but then you've got to figure out to your brain why that works

51:27

to you why is that and so I would I really would the understanding the

51:33

why that you like photographer xyz's images I would love to help somebody uh

51:41

figure that out because that's something that I can now do I can now look at people's work and and

51:48

say I like the way they did those and now I kind of now I understand like I

51:54

know how they achieved that yeah also for our listeners out there I would love to see some of your work um whether it

52:00

be in a sit down we can go have coffee and talk about cameras and coffee or if you guys want to send us some of your

52:06

images via the social platforms DM us yeah if you're if you're any sort of feedback if you're start out and you're

52:13

like hey I this is a set that I just did for yep XYZ yep you know help me uh

52:20

improve it or what would you do differently or or what do you see that maybe I can work on um I had a mentor I

52:27

had a mentor when I was when I started photography and he was a studio portrait photography out of Dallas Texas and he

52:32

helped me so so so much um and I I don't

52:38

know how he looked through some of my first sets that I was proud of and sent to him some of my Lightroom cataloges I

52:43

sent to that man um the feedback I got yeah truly bless him because the

52:49

feedback I got was so soft but it had actionable things that I could do to do better yeah um and so

52:55

it's just a it's a it's literally a learn make repeat process and I do not

53:00

joke when I say I look back at work I did six months ago and see tons of things I would do

53:07

differently I look back at stuff I shot yesterday and say that we pulled we pulled deep images we did these are

53:13

these are from 2017 but I want you to understand 2018 I shot things in 2023

53:19

yeah that I would do way differently today I shot things in yesterday there you go so we've issued a challenge to

53:25

our viewers i' love to see those images send them to the DMS Facebook Instagram email absolutely whatever whatever your

53:32

preferred platform is and in return J there are some things that our listeners can do for us yes leave us review uh

53:39

comment if this is something that you'd like to see more of because I assure you I've got more crappy work I could

53:44

critique oh yes um hard drive's full we should probably we could even do this on the video side I think we should do it

53:50

on the video we can do this on the video side if this is uh well received if this is something that viewers are uh are enjoying um

53:57

us we them all good and bad all of them until then stay

54:03

safe enjoy life M and we'll catch you in the next one y

54:09

have a good one see you bye see