“25 Years With National Geographic” Joe McNally on What Photography Lost (And What It Gained)

Take the camera as a visa, it allowed you to cross boundaries.

People let you into their lives, and that's a great privilege to have. It's also a tremendous responsibility to do this honorably. Over a few decades of using a camera, how does your outlook change with photography specifically?

I shot a cover in the National Geographic, or life, it would stay on the stands. People would talk about it, it would be out there for a month. Yeah, even if you shoot a major campaign, oftentimes it's gone at a blank.

“You must see some jobs and opportunities disappearing.”

Reins of work that probably should have gone to a professional photographer, now being done by someone in-house with an iPhone. Rates and writes have shrunk to degree. What do you think the future hall is? Where do you think the advantages are for newcomers these days

that maybe you didn't have or your generation didn't when you were studying?

At the end of the day, all photographers need to do it, it is. German Naly, welcome to the move podcast. Thank you for joining me. Well, thanks for the invitation. We're talking across separate worlds here.

We are kind of getting used to it a little bit, to coordinate everything with these time zones, but yeah, I really appreciate you speaking to me. At the end of what appears to be a busy day for you. Welcome.

I thought the best way to start things off. I'm sure many people watch it listening to who you are,

“but for those that don't give us a 30,000 foot overview of who you are,”

as a person and as a professional, what you do, what you've done, what you're about to do, but more importantly, why you do it. Sure. Well, I'm sort of an accidental photographer in a certain way.

I went to school to be a writer, and I was literally forced to take a photo class. It was a requirement in journalism curriculum. I took a camera in my hands and I knew immediately. I was just one of those things.

I looked at this camera and I started making some photographs, not pretty good ones at all, but I thought, I can really work this. And it also struck me as the type of thing that will keep me out of an office,

which it has by and large for the last 40 plus years, because I'm no good at an office. And there it was. I started this journey. If you want to call it that,

while Commodore became gotten volume newspapers, you know, newspapers and wire services in early part of my career. In the very early '80s, I flipped over to color and started freelancing for magazines. Shot my first job for life in '84.

I think it was '83, '84. Started working for the geographic in the late '80s, shot for 25 years for the National Geographic. And I'm still in love with the sound of the shutter. Even though now we have technology

to make the shutter silent, I still enjoy my time behind a camera. I still love the engagement of it. And the window on the world that carrying a camera gives you.

I've always described a camera to anyone who might be,

you know, at a talk or something like that, or especially young photographer, especially when I speak with them, I tell them to think of the camera as a visa. It allowed you to cross boundaries,

and those can be physical, you know, geopolitical boundaries, or they more importantly can be emotional boundaries. People let you into their lives. And that's a great privilege to have,

as a photographer. It's also a tremendous responsibility to do this honorably. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. It's certainly a conjure into your people's lives.

“As well as your own, I think it can often be a mirror”

and what you care about and what you're interested in as well. And I'm interested to hear how that has evolved, I guess, or shaped you as a person as much as anything else for doing it so long in seeing the, a construction of the industry,

or arguably expansion of the industry, depending on how you look at it. But over a few decades of using a camera, how have, how has your outlook changed with photography specifically?

But how is it allowed you to also express yourself more as a person using that camera? Sure. You know what? I mean, in terms of expressing myself,

I am very grateful to a found photography because I have an active imagination,

if I didn't have photography as an outlet to express that imagination,

“and also combining that with an essential sense of curiosity,”

I really enjoy people and enjoy seeing how things work. I enjoy getting behind the scenes, what I have had a long history of photographing for instance, performers of all kinds, dancers, actors, musicians, et cetera.

And I'm always curious about their offstage life.

You know, I've worked for Sports Illustrated for many years, and I honestly, you know, I couldn't care less who wins the game. It's far more interested in the obsession that is behind excellence in sports that drive

to get that extra 10th of a second, who is that person. And so photography allows me to satisfy a very powerful sense of curiosity. And in terms of change,

you imagine two words simultaneously that are both very true, construction and expansion.

“The digital age has ushered in an amazing array of technology”

that allows a single loan photographer

to do very expansive things.

You know, I have been used to over the years working in the film era, say, for Sports Illustrated, to light and arena. You know, and we go out with, you know, 15, 20 cases of gear and light the whole place.

Massive amount of work. Now it was, you know, at the last Olympics, you know, a shot in Tokyo. And I'm routinely shooting at ISOs of 56,000,

which were not numbers that were ever available to us when I first started. So there's been tremendous expansion on that level. There's also been construction in the sense of loss of outlets, even though

people might say, oh, wow, there's plenty of outlets.

Yes, but not those outlets that sustained many photographers for many years. Like the magazine industry has plummeted. The online industry has grown exponentially, but there is also the quickness of those outlets.

The, I don't know, is probably the wrong way to put it, but the lack of durability, the lack of sustaining presence for a photographer. When I shot a cover in the National Geographic,

or life, it would stay on the stands, you know, people would talk about it. It would be out there for a month, you know, and people within the industry would talk about it. Now even if you shoot a major campaign,

oftentimes it's gone at a blank. So that, you know, kind of anchor that we had for many years is creating much gone.

“So you have to jump in and start swimming,”

and pretty rapidly to stick with this business. If you're enjoying this conversation, and if you're drawn to this kind of slow reflective discussions, we have on this podcast, then I want to let you know about my free closed community book club,

which might be something that you generally find value in. The voice alchemy book club is kind of an extension of these types of conversations. Each month we focus on one of three types of work, a book, a photo book,

or a photo critique, and we meet online to sit with it properly, asking ourselves what it's meant to one another, what we can maybe learn from it, what ideas and actions we can take from it, what it's wrestling with,

and what it asks of us as viewers and creators. It's a space for deeper introspection, long-form thinking, and really honest discussions around photography, creativity, and authorship.

There's no pressure to perform at all, no chasing trends, no algorithms, no need to have everything figured out, just honest, authentic connection with fellow like-minded creators, careful, collaborative looking,

thoughtful and meaningful conversation, and a community of people who care about staying with the work long enough for it to mean something. So, if this episode and this podcast generally resonates with you, which I hope it does, the book club is a natural place

to continue that way of thinking, and accurately participate for free with others that will be open and welcoming to you and your ideas. You'll find more details via the link in the show notes, and I really hope to see you there.

It must be difficult to not be nostalgic about those glory days. Oh, maybe they are glory days, maybe they're not for me.

I kind of look back at those and think they,

there are some beautiful times for the photography industry.

“Extremely competitive on a commercial level, I think,”

but those, like you said, those, almost timeless moments and those, the amount of time people sit with photos, the amount of respect people had for image-making and curation and publishing and magazine-making.

Do you look back at those days and wish they were the same? Or are you really embracing the digitized worlds and the way that photography is moving forward? I would say it's the latter. I really embrace what I do now.

I'm probably having more fun as a photographer now than I've had over the years, even though I can look back at those times. It would be very grateful that I lived through them. The name and the power of the National Geographic was outstanding.

“It could open amazing doors for you to walk through as photographers.”

So I don't regret that time and on a certain level, yes, you'd have to miss that those opportunities to degree. But at the same time, I have such a wonderful opportunity now to pursue stories that I want to pursue, make proposals, I have, you know,

in my own website, et cetera. I have a certain outlets to the community, Instagram, et cetera, which is, you know, people say, "Oh, you know, it's be, you can flip through Instagram very quickly." But it's a place where I can publish.

And I can try things and offer up ideas and projects et cetera that at this point I can be somewhat selective about. So yeah, I mean, those days were heavy days indeed, but also at the same time, you know. Man, you would go out there from the National Geographic

for $500 a day and you would literally kill yourself. There was, there was so much grinding effort involved in those. Those stories, the stories would stay with you for months and months and months. And it was a pathway to good work as, as Go Allard, who's a colleague at the Geographic, often said,

"You cannot be indifferent and do superior work." So when you would get a story for the Geographic, it would stick with you. It would, you know, go into the shower with you. It would be in the windshield as you were driving and thinking about it.

Ruminating it and bad it. And that was a process, but it was also a grind. And now when I shoot, I can free myself up. I still do commercial work. I still travel a great deal.

I'm currently traveling more now over the last five years than I did in magazine days.

“Still editorial work, or is it more, you know, personal projects?”

It's more marketing and commercial work. I do have some legacy clients who still look out and come after me to go, "Hey, we need you to go do this." I still shoot for Nikon. I've been a Nikon photographer since the beginning of my career.

And I was one of their first, what they call ambassadors.

And so last year, a little, I introduced the 35 millimeter F1.2 and the 24/7 of the F28, the new adaptations. Okay, that was, and they gave me a real agenda. Do what, do something creative, right? You're in the creative.

You know, I mean, that's, it's like, okay. You're that right? I'm not, I'm not going to have an art director out here with me. So they kind of fought it, right? Well, they, you know, the, the beautiful thing about being left to sort of alone in the playground

is that you create what you, what you feel like doing. And they're very, very pleased with it. So that means I'm a happy camper at that point. But you've earned that trust and that freedom through, you know, your legacy clients as well as your reputation.

And, you know, huge, huge, incredible body of work.

So, I mean, for you, for someone like Joe McNally, who's kind of at the frontier of the still the commercial work out there. These days, the education platforms and portals and outlets, as well as everything else, social media. How have you observed the opportunities and the,

that kind of construction that we're talking about with the industry. Certainly with the commercial side of the thing, because, you know, we talk about what you've just been doing and the commercial jobs that you currently do

Have you also seen that, because I just think,

well, AI must be entering. I don't want to dive into AI too much. I think it's just talked about so much at the moment of the industry. And none of us really know how it's going to affect, I think. I have a, I have a significant belief of how it's going to affect photography specifically as well as

society.

“But you must see some jobs and opportunities disappearing,”

or at least, you know, really getting sacked up by, you know,

the much cheaper options of AI generated images.

Is this me just imagining things? Or is it, can you, you see that and observe that in your job? Sure, yeah, no, you speak the truth there for sure. There are things that, you know, reans of work that probably should have gone to a professional photographer now being done by someone

in-house with an iPhone. You know, depending on the objectives of the job to be sure that has constricted the market. And also, again, not probably the completely right word but cheapened the market in the sense of rates and rights have have shrunk to degree. There's no two ways about that.

And I haven't been affected by AI, you know, at this point in time. I, you know, I'm not not even enough to know that I'm, to claim that all, I'm not using AI. Of course, I'm using AI. There's algorithms in my cameras that are driven by AI and face recognition,

the eye recognition, those kinds of things are, are the positive of sign of the coin. And what could be a negative sign of the coin is the, is the Frank Way of the veracity of the image. And actually, one of the, one, an image I made last year for the 35 can't paint for Nikon. It was, you know, tiny as bit of pushback a little on Facebook, for instance, you put your stuff out. You know, and he must be using AI.

Like, no, no. What you're seeing is what comes out of the camera. Post production is applied. It's a commercial job, skin work, you know, on the model or something like that. But nothing that changed your alter the simple fact of the image, the raw image that came out of the camera.

So that sadness me a little bit that people will look at it at a picture and think, oh, you know, sort of doubt the original root of it. That kind of stinks, you know. And invariably, AI will be put to money saving enterprises, maybe even nefarious enterprises. We see it in the political conversation here in the United States. There's so much back and forth about information versus misinformation.

We have a president who is using artificial imagery to promote his agenda. You know, we have not seen these things before. They are not necessarily good things to be sure.

“So I think it's time for people to put a spin on a phrase.”

It's people of goodwill to man their cameras and shoot them in a very real and telling way. I feel plenty of photographers out there who are doing that. Yeah, and it's it's it's it's nice to observe. It's not nice to observe, like you said, the nefarious uses and the the restriction or the kind of diminishing of opportunities for those commercial photographers. But it is nice to see people connect with the process more and really want more authenticity and actually get fed up with.

AI imagery AI videos AI chats AI bots people people really enjoy that connection. And when it comes to photography, I definitely see people. I mean, the camera business is still absolutely booming in terms of that the manufacturing and the consumerism of cameras and lenses. You'd think they had made all the lenses and cameras that there were ever to be made. But, you know, we love buying them, we love using them and we love the process of taking an image.

For which you are incredible at tell me tell me about your process.

“I believe this is that's really wide question, but you have a very distinct style and I'm interested to where that style came from.”

Especially use of flash and lighting and as you've evolved over the years and back in your early days. But, you know, you're accolades in your experience with some huge organizations you mentioned some already like National Geographic and life.

It did those early days and those environments kind of shaped your style and how you wanted to be as a photographer or did you already have that kind of embedded in your. In your psyche.

“Good question and it touches on something we, you know, briefly mentioned earlier just about your makeup as a photographer, you know,”

and I've always described photographers as a mosaic of all of their influences when they put their eye into the camera where we are influenced by the way we look at the world.

The upbringing we had perhaps, I mean, I went to five different grammar schools, my dad changed jobs a lot and I didn't realize it then, but it's sort of preparing me to be a photographer because I was always the new kid. You know, and as a photographer you're oftentimes the new kid you're dropped into a situation where you don't really know the parameters or the people. So I kind of lost myself in adventure novels, I read a lot as a kid, you know, like comic books, legends and lore and fantasy and lore to the rings and, you know, you know, spider-man and all of that stuff.

And I, I look at it now and I can see that influence in my work, you know, that I have a fear of the strong color palette, you know, a lot of perhaps hero point of view.

Because if they walk with athletes, you know, you make them loom larger than life and it's also not to be neglected, comic books are very good storytelling device. They move you through pages with punch and impact and that is something at the end of the day off photographers need to do is tell good stories, connect the dots and keep the viewer or the reader involved.

“So I think life experience of the way you were brought up and came along and this world is on a very powerful influence at the camera.”

And also your sympathy for other human beings, you know, and the human condition and to look at things and again be curious about them, be synthetic to them and get involved as a photographer. Yeah, I think empathy is is an underrated skill that one has to really learn by doing and learn by by failing a lot of times, especially if you're shooting people, of course. Speaking of failure and you mentioned it earlier and I wanted to touch on it because I don't know if what I read was true or not in doing a little bit of research on you.

But was there a story about an Olympic torch moment with whether you photograph an Olympic torch or is that something that I completely misunderstood? No, not so much being an Olympic torch. But I did mention at one point there he's passed on now, but I used it as an example when I was talking to a group about the legend really of Heinz Kootmeyer who was an astonishing sports photographer at sports illustrated for many years. And the lengths he would go when in the 84 Olympics when the torch came up the steps it was a backlit situation and he was not allowed to be there, but he figured out what seat would have the best optimum view.

And he found out somehow who was seated in that seat because it was a VIP seating area found that person preset a camera to the specs of backlight gave that camera to a personal screening there.

“But they made the picture and no one else had it. And just a remarkable example of the tenacity you have to bring to the party. And that is also an issue that doesn't get talk about all that often matters to hear out now tenacity.”

And the willingness to accept failure, you know, you mentioned accolades before and yes, I've had my share, but the last thing as a photographer you could ever do is believe your own press notices.

You have to keep your feet on the ground because you can win an award and I've always described in words as massages, you know, they feel good, but they're temporary.

You have to go out the next day, pick up the camera and go find a new job and do another picture or hopefully, you know, do a better picture than you did the day before. This is a ongoing process of striving to get better and accepting routinely really a high level of failure as you're trying to endeavor at this and be tolerant of that.

Have you ever been disheartened? I mean, disheartened? Yes, I'm sure, but really lost through failures.

At least deep motivated what parts of your photographic career have you just kind of not given up, but I'm sure we've all been through it where failure becomes a little bit of a habit until you get that one image that kind of resparks your curiosity and motivation. And has that been a theme for you of you just being completely tenacious with failure in itself and really picking itself up by bootstraps every time and, you know, going forward into the next learning experience. It's a good question. I'd like to think that I've come down on the side of being tenacious and just brushing myself off and going forward partially out of fear.

“You know, because this is the only thing I really know how to do.”

Yeah. If I gave it up, then what the hell else am I going to do?

But, yes, I've certainly been in trust, you know, as every photographer has, I used to teach at the Eddie Adams workshop and that was always a wonderful event.

And I was a teen leader there for 14 years and every year they'd asked the teen leaders to start off the workshop by bringing up images that they were, you know, fond of or, you know, felt we're important in their career and I always tried to use that as a bronzer and I would only choose images and you would have to show 10.

“And I would only choose images. I had shot that previous year because I didn't want to go back into like my higher glyphics, you know, and oh, I shot this, you know, 15 years ago, I tried to keep it current.”

And there were years where I would look and say, I don't have 10 good pictures from this year, you know, I did not have a good year.

And that would always be like a little bit of a slap in the face, you know, like, oh, you know, I got it, I got to pick up my game here and see what else I can do.

Yeah, I know that feeling.

“When did that turn into education, I guess, you're, you're known probably as much for your, you know, live workshop stage presence, your education platforms.”

When did this come about in terms of realizing that this was something that you really enjoyed and that you could do and obviously monetize, timing it really well with what we've already, what we've already talked about how photography's gone over the last few decades. Tell us about the education side of photography because you talk, you talk so well, I mean, even on on the half an hour that we've been talking, you talk so well with advice and sharing experiences and being able to distill it down into something that.

But so why did this not come from why did, why did this interest curiosity with the education side things and giving back, I guess, come from. Again, a little bit of an accident, you know, I don't want to present myself to someone who's, you know, just kind of like fell on the right direction over the last four years, but you know, and I entered this, I didn't really have a plan, you know, I was, I was minted. I came out of Syracuse University's new house school of journalism and I was minted as a newspaper photographer.

This was in the 70s and that was a very viable thing like bang, you know, now you're a newspaper photographer and you can go get a job at a newspaper, that was a viable thing to do. Yeah, I mean, I didn't think looking back when I started my career, I didn't ever think I would be, you know, what they refer to now as a brand, you know, and that you know have this name and et cetera, that was never even crossed my mind. And I was asked in the '90s, the late '90s, actually, to replace Bill Aller, there's that name again, Bill is a legend, by the way, he's just an astonishing photographer.

And he was teaching at the main photographic workshops and he had a drop out and they called me up and said, we'd like you to replace Bill Aller. And I looked at them and I said, I ain't no Bill Aller, you know, are you crazy? And I said, no, you're going to be alright, you'll be able to handle it.

We share a lot of the same strengths and weaknesses, anxieties, you know, you know, ups and downs.

And I found that talking candidly about it, I found a receptive audience through that kind of discussion. And it also fueled me. It made me a better photographer because people ask me questions or challenge you.

“And you have to kind of dig deep and find that answer or respond on some level that makes you self-examine, you know.”

So I find I enjoyed it and I, you know, could carry a conversation or a lecture or something like that.

And that became actually in terms of the public face of our studio, the education component is very prominent. Because we, to film workshops, you have to tell people about them. And so we're, we are out on the internet and we're, we just lost an educational website, you know, here it's tough.

“Grace yourself, it's called Better Pictures with Joan. And then, um, it's been, you know, really kind of heartening, you know, it's a small community, but it's growing.”

And people are passionate and I'm communicating with them, you know, mad, I wrote a blog for many years. And I stopped doing it because I kind of got to the point where I felt like I was just writing this thing and throwing it down a well. I didn't know who was reading it or if anyone was reading it. So now I'm find myself jazzed about writing again because I'm writing to an audience that really is interested.

And as really respond to them. So that is, I've been a really powerful thing that has come about just in the last few months here at the studio.

And I'm also drives forward from the fact that photographic information is pretty useless unless you pass it on. I mean, what, you know, some folks out there at the time for us to collect their massive secrets to this, there isn't. It's hard work. And it's sustaining, you know, in, in good times in bad and being really dedicated emotionally committed to the idea of making pictures because they're so goddamn important. And you, you take up that mantle and you carry it forward and why not share it, you know, especially now at my stage of things, you know, that I've had a lot of experience under my belt.

Pass it on, share it. And it's always been a pass it on business. And the respect I have for mentoring really stems from the fact that I was mentored very powerfully. And sometimes sometimes viciously by older photographers who would take the aside and say, listen, kid. This is the path for you. This is not for these images are shit. Okay, but these over here have merit. So follow this path, you know, so metrics are very, very necessary and powerful thing for growth as a photographer. And as a human being, and I think they're not mutually exclusive. You have to be, you know, you have to, I mean, there's so many obviously different individuals around the world, but like you said, a lot of photographers have a lot of, a lot of, a lot of good photographers, I should say, have a lot of things in common.

“I think we all need an edit at some point, whether that's with photography or with our attitude or with our open mindness or with our curiosity, whatever it might be. And that is one really, I'm glad to touch upon it.”

It's one reason I started this podcast because I felt like things were gate kept so much. And I, when I started photography, I felt completely isolated. It was either you go and pay a lot of money for a workshop somewhere, and that's a very temporary transitional experience. You get to be with someone maybe for a few days and then it's like, off you go. Or you, you're done, or you do the sterile YouTube learning experience and and really just wanted someone to sit next to me and just tell me everything they've learnt whether it's right or wrong, just give me as much as you can. And I always wondered why photography was so precious in its sharing of knowledge.

And it's no different to anything else that we need to pass on information, we need to pass on skills and experiences and life lessons and stories. And I think you've certainly been a Godfather in that respect. So thank you for, for at least, you know, providing those resources to people. And I've got better pictures with Joe, your new education portal here in front of me.

Sure, it is, it's a word that's used a lot, but it is very, very interactive. I'm on the side of great deal. And what we found over time, maybe we constructed the site, let me start at the beginning here.

“There's, there's video content and there are, it's a whole range of categories from history, you know, and stories from jobs that were significant, they were very complex, et cetera.”

Sort of as a backlog of historical information, right up through strategies for traveling for preparing for a job. Or as you see, you mentioned workshops, you know, workshops are very, very popular industry now.

And what you find is oftentimes people, you know, they'll go on a workshop and then they will touch their cameras for five or six months. And then so we have offerings in terms of workshop prep.

“Or if you want to brush up your skills today, for instance, I did an online mentoring session with a very young, very promising photographer based in LA, and she signed on for online mentoring.”

So in person mentoring, I did three stints of in person mentoring where I work with people in terms of approaching location, sorting out the lighting, you know, relating to the subject, all of that. So it's a very kind of 360 approach to photography and hopefully pushing people in the right direction when they, when they go out into the world, if there's, there's all, it's also couched with a great deal of respect for the art and craft. And that stems from my experience in it. And the way that, you know, I've approached it the way I was taught. So it is a very, very dynamic platform and the, the silver lighting, which I guess we should have expected, but has come on really strong is that people on the site, a lot of them are supporting each other.

People are starting to throw pictures out on to the site say, I've got this job coming up. In fact, it just happens yesterday on a very active member said, I've got a job coming up where I have to shoot 80 portraits.

80 headshots in my goodness. Two days. Two days. Yeah.

And he just threw it out to the community. Is anybody how many thoughts about construction site, you know, backgrounds? This isn't that and people went shipping in and they're trying to help help out or offer notions ideas. As I said, I'm on the, as I say, I'm on the site a lot in a conversational way. I respond very, very quickly. It's just been a lot of fun. And that is something that is a wonderful byproduct of having the kind of backlog of, you know, all of that stuff behind me on the wall, you know, that I shot and to pass this on.

So it's been a long, it's been very engaging, very fun and very lively.

Education, I guess, outlets you've done over the years, well, what would you see is the one thing or a few things that we're not necessarily talking enough about these days as photographers, but especially as audience or beginner photographers or photographers wanting to transition from the hobby side of things into more of a professional structure. What do you see is that the things that we're not focusing on enough or not really concentrating on enough.

“Good question that. I think it's a couple of fronts. There is two degree among say that the ranks of animatures and hobbyists, they see work and they try to imitate it.”

Yes, they'll see, in fact, some fairly notable teachers have actually come out with books or websites that say, this like those here at, you know, this power, this like those here at this power, and it's it's good information. I'm not decrying it on a level, but what you have to do is, or we have to emphasize to people is to take that information in. Curl it around your own, you know, intestines and your own heart and what not digest it, and it come back with something that is unique to you.

And the, the other things that don't get talked about and we sort of touched on this already a bit is.

The couple of fronts, one is durability, you know, the fact that this is a long sometimes difficult slog and it can also can be very physical, you know, and involve, you know, a lot of pushing and pulling with some folks, which takes some folks by surprise. And the other idea is to develop skills that allows you to achieve, achieve, uh, reproducibility. And by that I mean, the cameras are so automatic, you know, you put a fancy camera on program now pointed at the world.

One of the likely you're going to get a decent photograph, sometimes even a really good photograph, depending on the scene that's in front of you.

And then you start to think like, oh, I'm pretty good at this, you know, I should turn profession or head in that direction and I'm like, okay, well, let's wait a minute, okay, because that was the cameras response, maybe 80% of that picture is the camera.

“You have to do is reverse that equation, so that when you get yourself, if you're going to call yourself a professional and get into this in a serious way, you have to be able to do tomorrow.”

Something that was totally different from what you did today, if you're placing an adverse situation, okay, how do you figure that out? You have the the gravitas and the technical background to be placed in a difficult position and really make a good photograph out of nothing or something that's actually working against you. So reproducibility, can you do tomorrow what you did today? Okay, that is a real boundary really between the status of being say an amateur or an occasional photographer and then calling yourself a profession.

“That there's a significant boundary line in there and that has to be worked at and you have to develop skills before you make that neat.”

And so I think that technology sometimes is is so ficil. You know, it's so seamless that it can introduce a sense of confidence that is at least maybe at this particular moment. I wanted that needs more work that needs more sanding down that needs more craft on your part. And I've said this a hundred times that art we always pursue this photograph that we would call art, you know, that something that is significant something you want to put on the wall, but art is the house that sits on a foundation called craft.

And it's a mutuality there that has to be observed because to me, good photographs on any consistent level, you have to know your shit. Art sets on the foundation that is craft. I love that totally true. Where does craft then become art? You know, even in this conversation, you've used good and bad quite frequently in terms of image making. Where does craft become art and where does bad or average become good? And I know that's like a really broad question, but in your eye in your experience.

“What are you looking for in a quote, good image and quote?”

Sure. Again, I mentioned his name earlier, Eddie Adams, he was the very faint photojournalist for associated crafts who made the Pulitzer Prize winning photograph many years ago of the South Vietnamese Colonel blowing the brains out of the suspected vehicle.

So he had tremendous chops as a photographer and he always said that the best photographs reach into your ribcage and tear your heart out, which is fairly strong language.

But it's also quite true in a very real way. And for me to get a picture published in the National Geographic had to fire on at least three pistons. One was information, okay, does it move the story along? The other was pictura. Is it a good photograph?

And that's really, to me, that's the key. If you can make somebody pause in this unbelieved and visually saturated world we live in, and the world of Instagram and likes and Facebook and

“I don't know what they're talking about and the incredibly shrinking attention span that many of us have. And I am guilty of, you know, for sure.”

But how do we stop people? Make them sick, make them angry, make them sad, make them laugh, make them in the best of worlds, get them involved, you know, to make them pause in their furious scrolling to actually get involved with the photograph and seek out what this is photograph mean. Why am I affected by it? Because I, this is going to come full circle and hang in there with me. And I firmly believe I've always believed that once you see your truly great photograph, you are changed forever. You might not even know it right at that moment, but somewhere inside your emotional tectonic plates just shifted a little bit.

“And to that end, why I highly advocate for any of the tongue for professional otherwise, and we actually just launched this on the site, a resource center where I list the books that are important to me.”

And I admire a tremendous range of autonomous, I learned from some amazing photographers. And a lot of those photographers have books have repositories of their work that is very emotionally involving is very directive in terms of how you can look at these photographs and feel something and then pursue something akin to that with your own imagery. And that is a really powerful thing to do. So I wanted to make sure I mentioned that in the podcast that books historically important photography books. So they don't mean just hitting you know 500 pixels or Instagram.

Do that you have to stay up on what's happening and what's current, but there are there's a core of books that I have in my head and my heart all the time and I go back to them. I refer to them. I sit with them sometimes because there's a prominence. There's a durability and there's a satisfaction in knowing that those photographs are still with us.

“100% and just in the physical nature of a book rather than a tiny little screen that we're using our thumb to scroll. It's interesting that we still conflate Instagram with photography.”

It just doesn't it's for me it just doesn't mix anymore. Instagram is much more of an audience building tool marketing tool. And I wish we kind of shifted our perception of what it's the Grammys from this way to share images to more like a way to connect and a way to you know. Show images of course but also market use it as a marketing tool if you're selling stuff for wanting to say things that you feel are important. But yeah like I'm glad you talked about that because I don't think it gets talked enough about and I'm that's such a little almost cottage industry in in terms of book publishing and photo book world and just books with photographs.

People certainly the youngsters is what from what I see coming in the industry don't.

A really know that there's many photographs out there that have been around for years and years and years that we should really fundamentally study if we want to be better at this craft and this art. And also don't really appreciate maybe the photo books so much so yeah I'm that it in photographs as well I mean just other than the images that lay out the sequencing the the emotion that you're talking about which makes great images that some photographers who published books are able to tap into and like you said really make us feel something when we turn pages.

So how do you if you do teach storytelling or elements of storytelling is a photographer what what do you say about it and how do you advise people to tap into the emotions of the viewer and make people feel something through. It's storytelling is a bit of a cliche word because it's really it's a really difficult thing it's a broad concept but touch upon the idea of storytelling for us as as image makers and any advice that you can give around that.

It's a foremost you know or have that incorporated as part of your work ethic to to refer to good photography to seek out work that's being done currently work that's gone before and that will inform you. I think that's of paramount importance is research knowing your subject before you go out there if you're going to tell the story you have to know the the I'm the ins and outs of that story and what the tension is and there's something about everybody pretty much you know on the internet you know if you're being assigned to photograph them.

Just just as a small example I shot Hillary Clinton's book jacket picture from her last one of her lines publications and she's used it several times over I also photographed Chelsea because they wrote it book together so I did mom and daughter and then together etc and you know Hillary was pretty much known. The equation but not so much Chelsea for me so I did my research I knew all all the names of her children what schools they were going to etc and I was able to banter with her and that really puts your subject in ease so you know you can tell a story during the course of a studio session.

If it's a one hour portrait session or something you're telling the story of that you can be and one of the things that's very powerful is for you to know something about them to put them at ease.

“Because I think as photographers we have to remember that an engineer earlier about crossing emotional boundaries when someone gets in front of your camera that's a very vulnerable place to be.”

And they're giving you the gift of their vulnerability so what we have to return at the camera behind the lens okay is the same kind of vulnerability the same kind of almost desperate emotional need to do well. So you have to partner that person is in front of the lens you have to take care of that not only while you're making photographs but in the aftermath of that you have to be the good shepherd of their image.

I did a it was a very emotional chronological right after the 9/11 disaster.

I was called Faces of Ground Zero I used the world's only giant Polaroid camera and. 25 years later hard to believe here we are. I'm still friends with any number of those people who stepped in front of the camera and not a single one of them is ever seeing one of their pictures used from that very emotional time. In any sort of untoward way. You know I've been extremely careful with the gift that they gave me by coming to that camera and standing in front of it during those very desperate days right after 9/11.

“So I think there is a big responsibility we have when we're story storytellers out there engaging with people.”

Is to know our subject matter be respectful of people we encounter and then deliver on the promise of that story and be careful with it. Yeah well said and I wanted to touch upon some of the images that you made and you kindly sent over some images that we we. Well show on the screen and may have already done so already but I wanted to kind of touch upon a couple of these and get a little bit more context or as the story behind it because. There are a few that stand out to me just from a personal level and this goes on to what we've just been talking about in terms of connecting with the viewer and driving story driving emotion.

“But as a as an A V A to myself the first one that stuck out was the blue eight I think it's blue angels from from the cockpit please tell me about this image.”

How you got it where the opportunity came from and just this experience of you pulling multiple Gs probably at the same time as you know pointy a camera put yeah give it give us a story behind that image. Sure I was very fortunate I was assigned by National Geographic to do a story called the future flight.

And I shot it on a nightcon D1X it was the first time in the history of National Geographic that the published a story without shooting a scrap of film.

So the one was this let's see was a cover of 2000 was in 2002 I think it was yeah I miss my guess and. Yeah I think that's accurate and the story was you know all about flight and the you know the phenomena of modern aviation as it was plunging forward and.

The developments in aviation and the technology or you know off the charts you know similar to what we're experiencing photography just the the.

“Fantastic sort of abilities some of these planes have and in the course of that I.”

I rang up the bluangels and of course then which is a. Just write me up. Yeah exactly exactly gotten to talk to them and we explain the story as you do and of course you know there's a lot of pride in the military services and the Navy wanted to be represented in the story. And so they said yeah sure come on down you can observe us training and do a story about us and you can find with us and so I ended up flying twice with the blue angels in the number fourth position.

“Which is they're what they call the slot which is the the tail you know on they have a diamond formation and a delta formation so the diamond formation is a foreplay and arrangement lead two wings and then the slot so I was in the.”

In the slot plane in the back seat of an F-A-18 and thankfully you know I had a great pilot you know is call sign was loose and as in really you know in the back seat of a. You know an airplane like this is supersonic airplane like this you you are utterly dependent on the pilot because the pilot has to give you. I had up you know and loose was great about that because if you have your head down looking at your LCD and he holds a six G tier your your toast your toast so he would be he would be coaching me along and the smart thing geographic did was send me to flight school prior to the story so I was flying.

Civilian a robotic plans for about a week or so and my amazing wife Annie was with me and the.

“She would be there on the on the ground when I would get down and like give me a banana help me clean up because.”

I would. I would know that I would go into these civilian aerobatic planes which are as I'm sure you know are very powerful. Just pulling hammer heads and men radius turns and stuff like that and I knew every day I would get sick.

You know this is my situation awareness outside of the cockpit concentrate on things on the horizon and so when I flew with the blues the first time I flew with them I didn't really well.

I flew with them about two years later and was not up to speed and I didn't do so well but. You know it's it's an extraordinary thing and this is up and over I'm in the number four plane and so I'm shooting this and believe with the. Like 12 24 back in back in that time and so we're upside down and I'm framing. And as well as I can this is not a heavy G maneuver you know with a really heavy G maneuver you can't even get your cavity right I've taken up to nine point two geez. And at that point I would black out did you black out.

Wow yeah yeah I flew I flew on the F 22 that's enough in this in this gathering of pictures again. I was I was actually back seat in that on in an F 16 and we flew observational on the F 22 which was the new hot plane in the sky and we were allowed 30 minutes only. And G graphic had to go all the way to the top of the air force chain it came in to get permission to do this so it's a lot of pressure on me and so again I had a really good pilot and. We only flew for 30 minutes I got some decent photographs so the F 22 and then heading back to Edward's Air Force Base.

The pilot said to me you know I don't want to land with a really relatively full full fuel tax because they don't like the land heavy you know and so I want to burn some fuel and where can you put up with me if I make a few moves up here. And then I got the ball stick with you know and I did find all the way through 9.2 and he wanted to keep his skills sharp and when I could ticked over 9 G's I lost the spectrum lost the color spectrum I great out and then I just vignette it.

Yeah it's extraordinary the physicality of of of these high powered aircraft.

“One wonderful story I want to touch on one more image before we before we wrap it up the that there's some performance art in here but there's there's one that kind of took my fancy just because of this.”

The curiosity that I'm getting drawn into with this man old man and piano in in a living room somewhere can you tell me about that image lighting's beautiful compositions incredible on this there's a story here that I'm not sure what it is but I'm interested to find out more. Sure that was that's he's gone now but that's Leonard Burst on at the piano and I photograph Lenny several times I got to know him a little bit just a little bit he was a volcano of a man. Difficult to be around sometimes but he was well and truly a genius and this is at his home and his estate up in Connecticut he's actually composing there and I lit the room I mean you know here's this is shot in the days of film if you look closely at this image.

You'll see in the upper right hand corner the reflection of my umbrella in his window and you know I can retouch that out you know math but I don't it's just there it was there in the original film and so I leave it alone because it just was piece of the puzzle that you know I made that day and Lenny is really into.

“In to his work at that point he wasn't paying any attention to me and I just felt like yes this is this is a picture of genius at work is really is and genius is a word that gets you know bandied about to easily nowadays but.”

Letter Burstine is someone will will be playing his music a hundred years from. It's metaphorical I guess with that is one in terms of the image it looks like a timeless image and this beautiful moment where. He he doesn't look engaged with anything else other than the art and the process that's directly in front of him and you've captured that so so beautifully. You're wonderful photographer wonderful conversation list before you leave tell us what the future lies for us as photographers but more importantly you know seeing we've talked about low barriers to entry potentially for photographers coming in.

We've also talked about competition being quite relentless but. What do you think the future holds and where do you think the advantages are for newcomers these days that maybe you didn't have or your generation didn't when you were studying.

“Yes I think there is a lot of advantages I see young photographers who are astonishingly talented.”

And they know so much and I think back to those days when I first you know had a camera and I came at a school honestly man I couldn't find my ass with both hands you know I just you know.

Kind of money I was a baby the woods but young photographers coming along now I think are much more sophisticated and much more worldly than much more technically adapt they're growing up with not only an knowledge of how to make a still image they're growing up with. And it's a requisite I think now to know how to make a moving image with the intricacies of the web and they know audio and visual. They have this companion of talents and skills that are necessary but also really truly wonderful to have at your behest you know because they will need them to survive but they will also put them to very good use.

My job when I first started this was relatively simple naked kid photograph you know go out and tell a good story make a good photograph come back and then tomorrow go out and do it again.

Now I think it's much more complex and photographers entering the field have to be prepared for that they have to know how to do many many things they have to know the web they have to know their craft they have to know moving and still they have to be able to. To deliver results under pressure and with great speed all of those things are incumbent on young photographers now and it's not an easy gig at all.

And the equation remains the same I think and even though it's more complex nowadays I've always referred to the fact that as a photographer as you go forward you need food for the table and food for the soul.

To the table that'll keep the lights on and food for the soul that'll keep your photograph experience alive.

“I think I would yes man I think I would you have to develop skills and they could be referred to at this point as survival skills you know multi facetit skills.”

Right and you indicated earlier to there's a certain isolation that's occurred with digital.

Like you know my best advice to an intern that we had here at the studio years ago was go get yourself a job at a newspaper.

“But the last time the last intern we had really she's wonderful photographer.”

She got an internship at Seattle Times and it was during digital era in the early 2000s and she came back from that and she had not met a single staff photographer at the times.

Because everybody would they would get their assignments on email and they would digitally ship there was no more wet dark room there was no collective space. Any more work for time if you get together at the end of the day which is you know was the the great way to give each other a bunch of grief but also a great way for a young photographer to learn from older photographers.

“So the reason isolation that I think has occurred where we really are set back on our own pins and we have to know our stuff in and of ourselves.”

We'll leave it there. Thank you so much Joe so many nuggets of knowledge and words of wisdom. I hope everyone will well jump onto your new education platform which is called better pictures with Joe and I feel like I can take better pictures with Joe now. So thank you so much for spending the last hour with me. I'll let you go and have your glass of wine and your dinner with your wife. But until next time, thanks. Thank you. Well, I'm very honored by the invitation. You're a hell of a good photographer in your own right. So I appreciate you reaching out and it's been a wonderful conversation. Appreciate it.

If you stayed with this conversation until the end, there is a good chance you're someone who values depth reflection and taking time with ideas rather than just rushing past them. That's the spirit behind my voice alchemy book club. It's a monthly space where photographers and creatives are like come together to sit with meaningful work. Photobokes, books, essays and long-form projects and talk honestly about what they're seeing, feeling and trying to make themselves. It's quiet, it's thoughtful and intentionally human. There's no pressure to perform, no need to have answers, we're all just figuring it out.

It's just time and space to reconnect with others, your work and your thinking. So if that sounds like something you'd benefit from, you can find more information via the link in the notes and the description. But I hope to see you there.