Also, some honesty about why I called this show "Terrible" that I haven't said out loud before.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Bartleby the Scrivener - Herman Melville (1853)

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - T.S. Eliot (1915)

Robert Berglas - Self-Handicapping research

THE BOOK

Lessons From a Terrible Photographer is out now. It's part memoir, part field guide, and part honest conversation about what it actually costs to build a creative life. If this episode landed, the book goes deeper.

Get it here: https://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Terrible-Photographer-Photography-Probably/dp/B0GRGLYKYS/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0

LINKS

Website: http://terriblephotographer.com

Support the show: https://www.terriblephotographer.com/support

Subscribe to Pub Notes: https://the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/terriblephotographer/

Patrick on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patrickfore/
Email Patrick : patrick@terriblephotographer.com

Email is always open. Questions, thoughts, hate mail. I respond to everything. Link above.

The Terrible Creative is written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore. Music licensed through Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions. Recorded from my garage in San Diego, California.

This episode is the follow up to Episode 61: Obsessed. If you haven't listened to that one yet, start there.

This week I go back to a specific moment. Sixteen years old, a Mac G5, a cosmos built from scratch in a high school art room in Freeport Illinois. Two strangers from the Art Institute of Chicago who saw something I didn't. And then the long, complicated story of what happened to that signal when the framework got louder than I did.

We also get into David Lynch, Jon Batiste, the 19th century psychology of monomania, and a John Updike line that I think is one of the most honest things ever said about what separates artists from entertainers.

Clips used in this episode:

David Lynch on his childhood memory that inspired Blue Velvet

Jon Batiste on being misunderstood his first year at Juilliard

WALL-E opening sequence

Music: OK Go, Obsession

Lessons From A Terrible Photographer is available now on Amazon. Get your copy here

Website Support the show Subscribe to Pub Notes, the newsletter Terrible Photographer on Instagram Patrick Fore on Instagram

Email: patrick@terriblephotographer.com

Podcast written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore. Music licensed through Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions. Recorded from my garage in San Diego, California.

This week I walked into an APA Peer-to-Peer Photo Book Critique in San Diego with six copies of my own book, a smug attitude, and some assumptions that didn't survive the first thirty minutes. What I saw that night from two photographers, Michele Zousmer and Andrew Hertel, forced me to sit with a question I keep asking about other people's work but rarely ask about my own.

Who is this for? And what drove you to make it?

This episode is about obsession. What it looks like when it's real. What it costs. And what it means when you've been swimming in borrowed obsessions long enough that you stop noticing.

People and work mentioned in this episode:

Michele Zousmer, documentary photographer. Her Irish Travellers project is some of the most honest and important photography I've seen in years. Website: michelezousmer.com Instagram: @michelezousmerphoto

Andrew Hertel, fine art nature photographer based in San Diego. His Japan book White Silence was made in a single day in Hokkaido. It shows. Website: andrewhertel.com Instagram: @andrewjameshertel

This week's clip is from @dishcreates on YouTube, talking about choosing a new artistic obsession. Worth your time.

Lessons From A Terrible Photographer is available now on Amazon. Get your copy here: https://a.co/d/0aqcL8Rq

Website: terriblephotographer.com 
Support the show: terriblephotographer.com/support 
Subscribe to Pub Notes, the newsletter: the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb Terrible 
Photographer on Instagram: @terriblephotographer Patrick Fore on Instagram: @patrickfore

Podcast written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore. 
Music licensed through Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions. 
Episode photography from Adobe Stock
Recorded from my garage in San Diego, California.

Four episodes. Four quadrants. Four different ways of asking the same question: who are you — really — when nobody's grading you?

In the final episode of the Johari Window series, Patrick texts eight people the same question without defining the word first. A photographer in Texas who's bored at events but wants the money. A friend who performs down to what shoes she puts on. A pastor in Iowa who said he doesn't feel fake — and then sent a follow-up voice note from a friend's house over Long Island iced teas that changed everything.

Not one person said they don't perform. Not one.

The Unknown is the fourth quadrant. In the original model it was framed as a limitation — territory nobody has access to. Patrick thinks that's the wrong way to look at it. Especially for creatives. Especially for people making personal work in the gaps between the jobs that pay the rent.

This episode is about the version of yourself that exists underneath all the other versions. The one that neither you nor anyone else has fully seen yet. The one that isn't always good. Isn't always safe. Isn't always received.

And why you might make something from there anyway.

In this episode:

Eight people, one question, no definition provided. What performing actually means when you ask people who have been doing it their whole lives. The pastor who works every day to keep two versions of himself close enough to touch. The stylist Patrick hired because he fell for the full version of her on Instagram — and what the transaction cost. The irony of finding more of yourself in a podcast garage than in a building founded on the radical idea that humans should show up whole. The serial killer problem and the Pokemon Go executive — and the question neither of them can answer. Why the Johari Window isn't a self-help tool. It's a mirror. And mirrors show you everything. The 16 year old, the 21 year old, the 31 year old — and who Patrick has been making this for all along.

The Johari Window — the complete series:

Episode 57 — The Glass House: The Arena. Visibility versus being known. Episode 58 — The Tell: The Blind Spot. What everyone around you already knows. Episode 59 — The Facade: What you hide. What it costs. Episode 60 — The Unknown: The version of yourself that doesn't exist yet. And why you make something anyway.

On Harrington:

Back in episode one Patrick pushed back on the model. Said the Arena requires two people. That you can't open the door alone and expect to be known.

He still believes that.

But Harrington was right about the window itself. It's neutral. It's just glass. It shows you what's there. It doesn't tell you which parts are good and which are dangerous. It doesn't sort the rooms for you.

What you do with what you see — that's on you.

If this series landed somewhere:

Email Patrick. He reads everything and responds to most of it. The emails that cost something to send are the ones he remembers longest.

patrick@terriblephotographer.com

Connect:

Website: terriblephotographer.com
The Book — Lessons From A Terrible Photographer: terriblephotographer.com/the-book
Support the show: terriblephotographer.com/support
Newsletter — Pub Notes: the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb
Instagram — The Terrible Creative: @terriblephotographer
Instagram — Patrick Fore: @patrickfore

The Terrible Creative is written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore. Music licensed through Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions. Episode photography from Adobe Stock and Unsplash. Recorded from a garage in San Diego, California.

Some weeks Patrick knows exactly why he's making this podcast.

Other weeks he almost quits.

This week he almost quit.

In Episode 59, Patrick pulls back the frame on the third quadrant of the Johari Window — the Facade — and what it actually costs creative professionals to maintain the gap between what they show and what's driving the showing. The polished portfolio. The confident host voice. The finished frame with the 400 failed shots cropped out.

This isn't an episode about lying. It's about omission. And about what happens when you build a professional identity around a creative practice that has no letter grade, no client approval, no clean signal telling you whether what you're making is landing or disappearing into silence.

Patrick talks about Episode 7 — the color theory episode where he ran out of ideas and made something anyway. About the specific loneliness of having no one to call mid-crisis who has the context to help. About talking creative decisions through with AI because that's what the forest looks like sometimes. About the analytics graph that will eventually reduce this episode — this specific vulnerable, costly, self-inflicted colonoscopy of an episode — to a data point.

And about why he kept walking anyway.

In this episode:

The almost-abandoned Johari series — what Patrick was going to make instead and what made him stay. The Facade as omission — how showing only the product accidentally creates a culture of impostors. The feedback loop problem — why the podcast is the hardest creative work Patrick has ever done to measure, and what his brain does in the absence of data. The AI collaborator admission — the specific loneliness of having context nobody else has. The difference between performed vulnerability and actual vulnerability — and why Patrick monitors that line constantly. The color theory episode — what episode 7 actually proved about whether the podcast could survive without a plan. The forest — the dim flickering light, the disappearing trail, and the thing that terrifies Patrick more than getting lost.

The Johari Window — where we are:

Episode 57 — The Glass House: The Arena. Visibility versus being known. 
Episode 58 — The Tell: The Blind Spot. What everyone around you already knows. 
Episode 59 — The Facade: What you hide. What it costs. Coming up — The Unknown.

The three words that describe this episode:

Bleeding. Silence. Walking.

If this one felt uncomfortably familiar:

That's the episode working.

Email Patrick. He reads everything. Some weeks your email is the only signal he gets that any of this is landing.

No pressure. But also — no pressure.

Connect:
Email Patrick: patrick@terriblephotographer.com

Website: terriblephotographer.com
The Book — Lessons From A Terrible Photographer: terriblephotographer.com/the-book
Support the show: terriblephotographer.com/support
Newsletter — Pub Notes: the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb
Instagram — The Terrible Creative: @terriblephotographer
Instagram — Patrick Fore: @patrickfore

The Terrible Creative is written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore. Music licensed through Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions. Episode photography from Adobe Stock and Unsplash. Recorded from a garage in San Diego, California.

Your clients see it. The people who've worked alongside you see it. The people who love you have probably tried to name it — in ways you found reasons to dismiss.

In Episode 58, Patrick continues the Johari Window series by moving from the Arena into the most uncomfortable quadrant: the Blind Spot. Not the things you're hiding. The things you don't know you're broadcasting.

Using his own creative identity as the case study — the self-deprecation, the Terrible brand, the mid-sentence bail — Patrick traces the armor back to its origin: a three-bedroom house in Freeport, Illinois, a dinner table where the competition was already over before it started, and a crayon surrender he signed before he was old enough to know what surrender meant.

This episode is about the system you built to survive. Why it made sense when you built it. And why it might be costing you more than it's protecting you now.

In this episode:

The specific look Alycia gives when Patrick abandons his own story mid-sentence — and what it means that he smiles instead of getting defensive. Steven Berglas and the Harvard research on self-handicapping — why capable people undermine themselves before anyone else can, and why success doesn't fix it. The sociometer — Mark Leary's theory about the internal gauge that monitors social acceptance in real time, and why most of ours are still calibrated for rooms we left twenty years ago. The two kinds of armor: lead and chrome. Why one makes you invisible and the other makes you blinding — and why both are running the same old software. Brian, the coloring book, and the crayon surrender. The Katie problem — what it means to be fully seen, how rare it actually is, and what the armor has to do with why it's so hard to find.

The Johari Window — where we are:

Last episode: The Arena — what you show the world, and why being visible isn't the same as being known.

This episode: The Blind Spot — what everyone else can see that you can't.

Coming up: The Facade, The Unknown, and the negotiation between all four.

If this one landed somewhere uncomfortable:

That's the episode working correctly.

Email Patrick. He reads everything and responds to most of it — especially the ones that cost something to send.

Connect:
Email Patrick: patrick@terriblephotographer.com

Website: terriblephotographer.com
The Book — Lessons From A Terrible Photographer: terriblephotographer.com/the-book
Support the show: terriblephotographer.com/support
Newsletter — Pub Notes: the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb
Instagram — The Terrible Photographer: @terriblephotographer
Instagram — Patrick Fore: @patrickfore

The Terrible Creative is written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore.
Music licensed through Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions.
Episode photography by Michał Parzuchowski — @m.parzuchowski
Recorded from a garage in San Diego, California.

Episode title and subtitle:

"The Tell" The Johari Window Part Two — What Everyone Around You Already Knows

In this episode, Patrick is sitting at a networking event in San Diego when a graphic designer asks him a question he wasn't ready for: "Who are you to write a book? To make a podcast?" What followed was a masterclass in what happens when radical transparency meets a closed receiver — and why no amount of clever explanation, diplomatic humor, or honest disclosure can open a door that's locked from the other side.

This is Part One of a five-part series on the Johari Window — a psychological model built in the 1950s to map the gap between what we show, what we hide, what others see, and what nobody knows yet. Patrick uses it as a lens to examine what it actually means to be seen as a creative professional in an attention economy that rewards the performance of transparency without any mechanism for checking the real thing.

Also in this episode: why Zach Galifianakis crying at his sister's wedding is the most honest thing in this conversation, what Jerry Seinfeld gets wrong about talent, and what it costs to make the self-deprecating joke when the room can't receive you.

In this episode:

The networking event that started this whole series — and the question that hasn't left Patrick alone since. The Johari Window, explained by an organizational psychologist named Erin over coffee. Why the Arena isn't just built by what you put out — and what happens when the receiver can't take it in. Zach Galifianakis, his sister's wedding, and five hundred people who thought grief was a bit. The mom joke, what it cost, and why Patrick stopped making it.

The Johari Window — the four quadrants:

The Arena — what you know about yourself that others know too. The Blind Spot — what others can see that you can't. The Facade — what you know but keep hidden. The Unknown — what neither you nor anyone else has figured out yet.

If this episode hit something:

This is Part One of five. The series continues with the Blind Spot, the Facade, the Unknown, and the negotiation between all four. Subscribe so you don't miss it.

And if you've ever been in a room where no arrangement of words was going to make it land — email Patrick. He reads everything.

Connect:
E-Mail Me: patrick@terriblephotographer.com

Website: terriblephotographer.com
The Book — Lessons From A Terrible Photographer: terriblephotographer.com/the-book
Support the show: terriblephotographer.com/support
Newsletter — Pub Notes: the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb
Instagram — The Terrible Creative: @terriblephotographer
Instagram — Patrick Fore: @patrickfore

The Terrible Creative is written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore. Music licensed through Epidemic Sound. Episode photography from Adobe Stock. Recorded from a garage in San Diego, California.

In this episode, Patrick sits down with the hard question nobody in the industry is asking out loud: were we already making replaceable work before AI arrived? He traces the argument from a weekend with the Capture One leadership team, through his own portfolio audit, two unscripted phone calls with a working commercial photographer, a portrait session with a professor who had never been photographed, and a Christopher Anderson image made inside the White House that quietly pulls itself apart at the seams.

This isn't an episode about AI killing photography. It's about what AI is making visible — and what that means for the work you make next.

Show Notes

The conversation about AI and photography has been happening at the wrong altitude. Markets, economics, job security — those are real questions. But they're the surface conversation. The thing underneath is harder: what were you making before AI arrived, and why?

This episode starts in Paris, 1839 — the moment photography was supposed to kill painting — and ends with a question you probably haven't let yourself ask yet.

Along the way:

— A weekend with part of the leadership team at Capture One, and why Patrick came home more excited than afraid

— The portfolio audit: scrolling back through his own work with new eyes, and what Gemini did with one of his best-performing images in four minutes

— Two unscripted phone calls with commercial photographer Morgan Turner — including the two words that said everything

— A portrait session with a professor in her fifties who had never been photographed, and what that responsibility actually looks like

— Christopher Anderson's White House portraits, a light switch, and why AI would have removed it

— The difference between a mistake and a strategic sacrifice

— Why the making might matter more than the image

Referenced In This Episode

Christopher Anderson — White House Portrait Series Shot for Magnum Photos during the Trump administration. Worth finding and sitting with. magnum photos.com

Capture One Professional photo editing software and the people building the tools photographers will use next. captureone.com

The Long Middle Series If this episode landed, go back to Episode 40. It's the first in a four-part series on creative loneliness — what happens when you're good at what you do and something still feels off. It connects directly to everything discussed here.

Guest

Morgan Turner — Commercial Photographer, Cranbrook BC Website: mturnerphoto.com Instagram: @mturnerphoto

Episode Photography

Photo by Teslariu Mihai Instagram: @photosbymihai

Links

📖 The Book — Lessons From a Terrible Photographer terriblephotographer.com/the-book

☕ Support the Show terriblephotographer.com/support

📬 Pub Notes — The Newsletter the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb

📷 Patrick on Instagram instagram.com/patrickfore

🎙 The Terrible Creative on Instagram instagram.com/terriblephotographer

📧 Email Patrick patrick@terriblephotographer.com

Connect

Have thoughts on this episode? Did the audit hit different than you expected? Did you find an image in your portfolio that survived it — or one that didn't?

Email patrick@terriblephotographer.com — he reads everything.

This bonus episode is the announcement I've been putting off — partly because I wasn't sure how to say it, and partly because the timing is, as with most things in my life, sideways.

The Terrible Photographer is becoming The Terrible Creative.

Same show. Same voice. Same refusal to pretend I have it figured out. But the door is wider now — because the emails I've been getting for years have made something clear: the struggle we talk about here doesn't belong to photographers. It belongs to anyone trying to make honest work in a world that keeps asking why you bother.

In this episode I talk about why the name was right when it started, why it stopped fitting, and a handwritten letter from a ceramicist in Vermont that I've been carrying around in my bag for eight months. I also talk about the Impressionists, a twenty-two-year-old kid in Los Angeles who told me my work was terrible, and a brand manager who had feelings about a throw pillow.

Oh — and the book is done. Lessons From a Terrible Photographer is real and you can buy it right now.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Lessons From a Terrible Photographer — the book → https://www.terriblephotographer.com/the-book
• Jeff Lipsky, photographer → jefflipsky.com

LINKS

• Buy the book → https://www.terriblephotographer.com/the-book
• Support the show → https://www.terriblephotographer.com/support
• Subscribe to Pub Notes (the newsletter) → https://the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb
• The Terrible Photographer on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/terriblephotographer/
• Patrick on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/patrickfore/
• Email Patrick → patrick@terriblephotographer.com

The Terrible Creative is written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore. Music licensed through Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions. Recorded from my garage in San Diego, California.

He watches it walk away. Then it starts to snow. Then he slips. Both boots go into the water.

"The moose was rubbing it in my face," he says.

Every freelancer knows that sequence. Not the moose — but the cascade. The opportunity that was real and unreachable. The ethical choice that costs you anyway. The universe punctuating the loss with weather. And then, because it's not done with you yet, the small stupid thing that compounds everything.

This episode is about the forces nobody puts in the brochure. Not the craft — you already have that. The River. The Weather. The Wet Boots. And the specific, invisible loneliness of navigating all of it while the rest of the world has no idea what the weather is like where you're standing.

We're not talking about failure. We're talking about terrain.

This episode is for anyone in the early years — still building, still surviving, still making camp on days when the moose walked away and it started snowing.

In this episode: The selection process for Alone — and why the skills are the entry fee, not the game. The River, the Weather, and the Wet Boots — three invisible forces the portfolio review doesn't measure. Apophenia — why your brain invents a tiger when three clients ghost you in a row. The Zeigarnik Effect and why there are no days off, only hours off. The specific loneliness of people who love you but can't follow you into the room where the hard thing lives. Why the freelancers who last stopped measuring themselves against the whole game. And what witness actually costs — and why it's sometimes the only floor available.

Podcast written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore. Music licensed through Epidemic Sound & Blue Dot Sessions. Episode photography from Adobe Stock & Unsplash. Recorded from the garage in San Diego, California.

🌐 terriblephotographer.com 
📖 The Book: terriblephotographer.com/the-book
☕ Support the show: terriblephotographer.com/support
📬 Newsletter (Pub Notes): the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb
📸 Instagram: @terriblephotographer / @patrickfore

Freelancing has none of that. There's no feedback mechanism that tells you you're okay. No quarterly check-in. No laminated menu that says: this is what we are, this is what we cost, this is what done looks like.

There's just the work. And then the silence after the work. And then waiting to see what the silence contains.

In this episode, I'm talking about the specific psychological cost of operating without a floor — and what happens when, after years of calling that freedom, you find yourself at midnight rebuilding a lunch counter from your childhood just to feel the relief of knowing what the job is.

We're going back to a dead pharmacy in Freeport, Illinois. We're talking about ambiguity, clarity, and the thing nobody tells you about creative independence — that freedom without a floor is just a different word for a cliff.

And why sometimes the most creative thing you can do is make something small, completable, and finished. Even if nobody ever sees it.

This episode is for the photographers, writers, designers, and creative humans in the long middle — still building, still surviving, still showing up.

In this episode: Emmert Drugs — a pharmacy lunch counter in Freeport, Illinois that treated time like a suggestion. The specific relief of a task with edges. Why ambiguity has a metabolic cost. The Karasek demand-control model and why high demands plus low control is the actual engine of exhaustion — not hard work. What small floors are and why your nervous system needs them.

If you're interested, you can see the spec Emmert Diner Spec Project I designed in 24 hours.

Podcast written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore.
Music licensed through Epidemic Sound & Blue Dot Sessions.
Episode photography By Elijah Hiett
Recorded from the garage in San Diego, California.

🌐 terriblephotographer.com 
📖 The Book: terriblephotographer.com/the-book 
☕ Support the show: terriblephotographer.com/support 
📬 Newsletter (Pub Notes): the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb 
📸 Instagram: @terriblephotographer / @patrickfore

Not because the advice is wrong. But because it assumes a stable, available self waiting underneath—one you can just step into when needed. For a lot of us in the creative industry, that self got covered over so gradually we didn't notice it happening.

In this episode, I'm getting into something I haven't talked about directly before: the mask. Not just the professional version—the competent, composed, commercially-legible persona we build to survive client work—but the original one. The one that got built long before the first invoice.

Carl Jung called it persona inflation: the moment the mask stops being a tool and starts being an identity. When the professional version of you becomes the only version that gets any airtime. I talk about what that looks like in practice—through the story of a photographer I know who froze when someone handed her a disposable camera at a block party, and through my own experience of a gear-shift I didn't choose at an IKEA on a rainy Tuesday night.

My daughter noticed something on the drive home. She said: "You still make jokes, but you aren't you."

I'm still sitting with that.

This episode doesn't resolve cleanly. There's no five-step framework for finding your authentic self. What there is: a half-second of space between the mask going on and the automatic accommodation beginning. That pause is what this episode is about.

In This Episode:

— The etymology of persona: why the Romans built masks to amplify, not to hide

— Quintus Roscius Gallus, the most celebrated actor in ancient Rome, and what happened to him when the performances stopped

— Why "just be yourself" is the most useless advice in creative work—and what makes it so hard to push back on

— How I learned to read a room, starting in Freeport, Illinois, and why I still can't turn it off

— Carl Jung's concept of persona inflation—and how it shows up in photographers, designers, and anyone who's built a professional identity on top of a creative one

— The IKEA moment: what a gear-shift feels like when you're not the one choosing it

— The difference between the professional creative mask and the social one—and why they're the same animal

— What Mara's disposable camera can tell us about the cost of twelve years inside a professional cage

Referenced in This Episode:

How to Win Friends and Influence People — Dale Carnegie

Carl Jung — Two Essays on Analytical Psychology (on the concept of the Persona)

Quintus Roscius Gallus — referenced in Cicero's letters and Julius Caesar's recorded commentary

Connect:

Email Patrick: patrick@terriblephotographer.com

Website: http://terriblephotographer.com

The Book — Lessons From a Terrible Photographer: https://www.terriblephotographer.com/the-book

Subscribe to Pub Notes (the newsletter): https://the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb

Support the show: https://www.terriblephotographer.com/support

Patrick on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patrickfore/

The Terrible Photographer on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/terriblephotographer/

Podcast written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore Music licensed through Epidemic Sound & Blue Dot SessionsEpisode photography from Adobe Stock & Unsplash Recorded from my garage in San Diego, California

This is Episode 52 (Part 5 of the Heresies series)—where we say the things the photography industry would prefer you not think too hard about.

Today: We are putting down the shields and taking a long, hard look in the mirror. We’re talking about Power. Specifically, the unique, intoxicating power we hold the moment we pick up a camera. We explore how the "Artist" label is used as a bulletproof vest for manipulation, how the camera provides a "loophole" for the shadow, and why "consent" under a power imbalance isn't as clean as we’d like to believe.

This isn't just about "those predators" in the headlines. It’s about the Hyde in all of us. If you don't think you have a shadow, you're the one most likely to let him hold the camera.

What We Cover

• The Mechanism of Permission: Why the story of Jekyll and Hyde is the perfect metaphor for the modern photographer.
• The Four Tiers of Hyde:
  • The Tourist of Flesh (Amateur): Using the camera for access to vulnerable spaces.
  • The Aesthetic Architect (Artist): Using "beauty" to mask the male gaze.
  • The Specialist: Why a narrow focus on adolescent athletes (dance, gymnastics, swimming) is a red flag.
  • The Untouchable (Professional): How the industry protects "talent" at the cost of safety.
• The Permission of the Lens: Why staring, directing, and asking for vulnerability are professionalized transgressions.
• The Myth of Consent: Why "she signed the release" doesn't always mean the interaction was ethical.
• The 18-19 Year Old Dynamic: The responsibility of the photographer to recognize the inherent power imbalance of age and reputation.
• The Peer/Judge Test: The one question that determines if you are a craftsman or a man using a camera to get what he wants.
• Stewardship vs. Stupidity: My own reckoning with a shoot that went off the rails and why "laziness" is often the entry point for the shadow.
• The Protocol: My personal systems for ensuring "No Surprises" and protecting both the model and the craft.

Referenced in This Episode

Historical Context:

• Robert Louis Stevenson: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886).

Audio & Media:

• TikTok: @chrryprncess (Reflecting on male photographers at youth dance recitals).
• HuffPost Live: Model slams Terry Richardson (The "Untouchable" Tier).
• Industry Statistics: * Model Alliance (2012) - 87% harassment rate.
  • 2024 #MeToo National Report & Late 2025 Data on on-set misconduct.

Links & Resources

The Terrible Photographer Website: terriblephotographer.com Instagram: @terriblephotographer

Support the Show (Buy Me a Coffee) terriblephotographer.com/support

Subscribe to Pub Notes (The Newsletter) the-terrible-photographer.kit.com

Patrick Fore Instagram: @patrickfore

Get in Touch If this episode made you feel something—rage, defensive, or relieved—I want to hear it. I read and respond to everything. patrick@terriblephotographer.com

Credits Podcast written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore. Music licensed through Epidemic Sound & Blue Dot Sessions. Recorded from my garage in San Diego, California.

Stay curious. Stay courageous. Stay terrible.

The answers were scattered. Glass. Grainery. Pixelfed. Substack. Flickr, somehow. Very few said Instagram.

There is no home anymore.

Instagram was built by photographers, for photographers. Square format mimicking film. Filters mimicking darkroom techniques. A grid layout that functioned as a digital portfolio. For a while, it worked. Photographers got discovered. Built followings. Landed clients. Built careers.

Then Instagram decided it wasn't a photo-sharing app anymore.

They killed the chronological feed. Launched Reels. Made still images functionally invisible. And on December 31st, 2025, Adam Mosseri—Instagram's head—posted an essay saying that professional photography is "cheap to produce and boring to consume." That camera companies are "betting on the wrong aesthetic." That savvy creators need to make "explicitly unproduced and unflattering" images to prove they're human.

We spent a decade mastering the Instagram aesthetic—sharp, well-lit, technically perfect. And Instagram just told us that aesthetic is wrong.

This episode is about what Instagram took from photographers. Not just reach or engagement, but livelihoods. Wedding photographers, family shooters, local portrait specialists—thousands of professionals built their entire client pipelines on Instagram. And Instagram was always a time bomb.

Tomorrow was never promised. But when tomorrow was working, it was easy to forget that.

This is the third heresy in the series. We've talked about camera companies that profit from inadequacy, and gear influencers who monetize it. This one's about the platform that promised to connect us—and ended up destroying the very thing it was built for.

IN THIS EPISODE

The Origin Story
How Instagram launched in 2010 as a platform literally designed for photographers—square format, darkroom-style filters, grid portfolios—and became the industry standard for discovery and client acquisition.

The Shift
The timeline: 2016 algorithmic feed, 2018 IGTV failure, 2020 Reels launch, 2021 "we are no longer a photo-sharing app," 2022-2024 still images lose 70-90% reach, 2025-2026 functional death of static posts.

Was It Ever Good?
The uncomfortable questions: Were you shooting for your portfolio or paying rent to the platform? Did Instagram help you find your voice, or teach you to optimize for performance? How we outsourced artistic intuition to an algorithm and edited our souls in real-time.

The Mosseri Revelation
December 31st, 2025: Instagram's head posts "Authenticity after abundance," calling professional photography "cheap to produce and boring to consume," saying camera companies are "betting on the wrong aesthetic," and telling creators to make "explicitly unproduced and unflattering" images. How Instagram trained photographers for a decade, then punished them for doing exactly what they were trained to do.

The Economic Trap
How wedding photographers, family photographers, and local B2C photographers built their entire businesses on Instagram client acquisition. How they're now trapped—can't leave (invisibility = no work), can't stay on old terms (algorithm killed reach), forced to adapt or die. Tomorrow was never promised.

The Scattering
Where photographers went after Instagram died for still images. The fragmented landscape of Glass, Grainery, Pixelfed, Substack, Flickr. Why none of them will replace Instagram. Why photography communities only work at scale. The destroyed center of gravity.

The Bellingham Confession
How Instagram's competitive energy pushed Patrick and his photographer crew to shoot more. Weekend photo walks. Friendly competition. The gamification that created work. And what happened when that fuel disappeared. The question: If you only shot because Instagram rewarded it, were you ever really a photographer?

What We Lost (And Should Be Glad to Lose)
Reach, discoverability, community, motivation, income. But also: the content treadmill, algorithmic optimization, the 1.2-second attention economy, outsourced judgment, rented land.

The Autopsy
How Instagram turned craft into content, replaced judgment with metrics, created artificial urgency, commodified images, made reach the primary goal. Why Instagram didn't kill photography by pivoting to video—it was killing photography the whole time.

The Mirror
Patrick's complicity. How he built his following on Instagram, got work from it, but also shot things he didn't care about because they'd perform. Checked metrics more than work. Felt anxiety about posting more than excitement about making. What did the reach cost?

The Ending
Patrick stopped posting three weeks ago. Shot more last month than all year. A hard drive full of work nobody's seen. Building on land he owns: website, email list, physical prints, client relationships. Not measuring work by double-taps. Not adding fake grain to prove he's human. The platform is dying. Maybe photography can live again.

KEY QUOTES

"We edited our souls in real-time to match the preferences of a faceless audience we couldn't see and didn't know."

"You weren't shooting for your portfolio. You were shooting to pay rent to the platform."

"Tomorrow was never promised. But when tomorrow was working, it was easy to forget that."

"Instagram didn't kill photography by pivoting to video. Instagram was killing photography the whole time. We just didn't notice because we were too busy getting likes."

"If Instagram disappeared tomorrow, would you still be a photographer? Not 'would you have a way to show your work' but 'would you still MAKE work?'"

"That's not a portfolio. That's a content treadmill. That's sharecropping."

"Instagram turned photography into a commodity of 1.2 seconds."

"If your only reason to shoot was Instagram, you were building on quicksand."

"They can't leave. Because leaving means clients stop finding them. But they can't stay on the old terms either. Because the old terms don't work anymore."

"The platform is dying. Maybe that means photography can live again."

REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE

Adam Mosseri - "Authenticity after abundance" (Threads, December 31, 2025)
Full essay where Instagram's head states that professional photography is "cheap to produce and boring to consume," that camera companies are "betting on the wrong aesthetic," and that "savvy creators are going to lean into explicitly unproduced and unflattering images of themselves."

Key quotes from Mosseri's post:

• "Just as AI makes polish cheap, phone cameras have made professional-looking imagery ubiquitous—both trends cheapen the aesthetic."
• "Flattering imagery is cheap to produce and boring to consume."
• "Savvy creators are going to lean into explicitly unproduced and unflattering images of themselves. In a world where everything can be perfected, imperfection becomes a signal. Rawness isn't just aesthetic preference anymore—it's proof. It's defensive."
• "That feed is dead." (Referring to Instagram's square photo feed)
• "authenticity is becoming infinitely reproducible"

Alternative Platforms Mentioned:

Fast forward to 2026. A YouTube thumbnail: "This CAMERA changed EVERYTHING 📷🔥" Description: "Amazon affiliate links below."

Same hustle. Different spring water.

In this bonus heresy, we examine why gear influencers are the modern-day televangelists of photography—how they've built an entire industry around keeping you perpetually inadequate, how they've changed what we value when we look at photographs, and why most of them can't actually shoot.

This isn't about hating content creators. It's about understanding the incentive structures that teach us to worship what we lack instead of what we hold. And it's about recognizing our own complicity in building this machine.

Warning: This episode names names and makes uncomfortable arguments. If you've ever upgraded your camera when you didn't need to, this one's going to hit close to home.

IN THIS EPISODE

The Peter Popoff Parallel
How a disgraced televangelist who sold "Miracle Spring Water" to desperate people is using the exact same business model as gear influencers—just with better production value and no FBI investigation (yet).

The Gospel of the Spec Sheet
Why the prosperity gospel and gear culture are built on identical psychological architecture: the promise that transformation is a transaction you can complete with your credit card.

The Liturgy of Inadequacy
How the inadequacy spiral works: You buy a camera. You're excited. Two weeks later, the algorithm shows you why it's not good enough. And the cycle begins.

"Almost" Is the Most Profitable Emotion
Why we stay in perpetual "almost"—almost ready, almost equipped, almost prepared. Because "almost" feels productive while keeping us from the actual work of making images.

The Confession
Patrick turns the mirror on himself—and on all of us. How we participated in building this system because buying something feels like progress, even when it's not.

The Influencer-as-Career Problem
Why an entire generation of photographers is learning that building a YouTube channel is more profitable than building a portfolio—and what gets lost when content about photography replaces the practice of photography.

The Mirror Moment
Patrick examines his own position: Does he have a podcast? A book? A newsletter? Isn't he doing the same thing? And why his one exception to the "no sponsorship" rule is Guinness beer.

Redefining "Good"
How gear culture changed what we see when we look at photographs—from "Does this make you feel something?" to "Can you see every eyelash at 100% crop?"

The TikTok Critique
A live Instagram feed critique where technical feedback (sharpness, color consistency, dynamic range) completely replaces any conversation about vision, intent, or what the photographer is actually trying to say.

The Scott Kelby / Jeremy Cowart Story
A moment from a photo walk where Scott Kelby interrupts Jeremy Cowart mid-shoot to ask about his settings—perfectly illustrating how we've been conditioned to believe the technical information is what matters, not the seeing.

What Actually Gets Lost
Not just taste or vision, but the willingness to sit with uncertainty. How photographers stop trusting their own eyes and start Googling "best composition for portraits" mid-shoot.

The Portfolio Problem (The nuclear option)
Why most gear influencers can't actually shoot—and how we've given authority to people who can measure corner sharpness but can't make a compelling photograph. Includes the uncomfortable truth about test shots masquerading as sample images.

What Doesn't Matter (And What Does)
Corner sharpness. Dynamic range. Color science. Megapixels. None of it matters if you can't see. And how the camera you have right now is enough—not "enough to start," but enough to make extraordinary work.

The Ending
Not permission, but presence. What Patrick stopped clicking. What he's sitting with. What he's letting stay unresolved. And why his three-year-old scratched camera isn't getting upgraded.

KEY QUOTES

"Almost is the most profitable emotion in the world. Because almost lets us feel like photographers without the risk of making photography."

"Your satisfaction is their bankruptcy."

"The camera didn't change. Your faith did. You were taught to worship what you lack instead of what you hold."

"Transformation is not a transaction. It's something you build."

"We've given authority to people who know how to measure corner sharpness but can't make an interesting photograph."

"Certainty is the enemy of vision. Because vision lives in the uncertainty."

"The thing I'm looking for isn't in the next camera. It's in the next thousand frames. And you can't buy those. You have to make them."

REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE

Peter Popoff
Televangelist exposed by James Randi in the 1980s for using hidden earpieces to fake divine revelations. Declared bankruptcy in 1987. Came back in the 2000s selling "Miracle Spring Water" via late-night infomercials. Ministry pulled in $23 million by 2015.

Inside Edition Investigation (2015)
Confrontation with Popoff showing his $2.1M home, $100K Porsche, and $600K+ salary funded by donations from desperate people.

James Randi Exposure
Magician and skeptic who revealed Popoff's wife was feeding him information through a hidden earpiece during "healing" crusades.

Peter McKinnon
YouTube creator, Canon ambassador, camera backpack designer. Used as example of distinction between content creator and working photographer (with explicit acknowledgment of his talent and intentional career choice).

Scott Kelby / Jeremy Cowart Photo Walk
Venice Beach incident where Kelby interrupted Cowart mid-shoot to ask about camera settings—illustrating the assumption that technical information is what matters.

Ofcom (UK Broadcasting Regulator)
Fined broadcasters in 2018 for airing Popoff's infomercials with health claims that crossed from religious expression into fraud.

MENTIONED PHOTOGRAPHERS & ARTISTS

(For the "what to study instead" section)

• Alec Soth
• Sally Mann
• Saul Leiter
• Robert Frank
• Nadav Kander
• Gregory Crewdson
• Ansel Adams ("Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico")

AUDIO CLIPS USED

Peter Popoff "Miracle Spring Water" Infomercial (2018)
Clips of testimonials, pitch, and call-to-action from late-night infomercial

Inside Edition Confrontation (2015)
Matt Meagher attempting to question Popoff about taking money from desperate people

EPISODE THEMES

• Inadequacy as a business model
• Prosperity gospel vs. gear culture
• The economics of content creation
• Technical language replacing aesthetic language
• Learning to see vs. learning to shop
• Vision vs. specs

Same fear. Same argument. Different century.

This is Episode 2 of Heresies—where we say the things the photography industry would prefer you not think too hard about.

Today: Why your camera brand doesn't care if you're a good photographer. Why brand ambassadors are unpaid marketing departments. And what happens when you mistake ownership for mastery.

We'll talk about the spreadsheet behind "partnerships." The ROAS calculations that determine who gets loaned gear. And why musicians like Benny Blanco make billion-stream hits on outdated Macs with wired keyboards while photographers argue about megapixels in forums.

This isn't another "gear doesn't matter" sermon. Gear absolutely matters—but only if you already know what you're doing. The R5 makes you more capable, not better. And there's a difference.

If you've ever felt like you needed the "right" camera to be taken seriously, this one's for you.

What We Cover

• The 1890s moral panic about "Button-Pressers" and "Kodak Fiends"
• Why I felt cheated when a beginner showed up with the same $10K camera setup
• What I learned working in Taylor Guitars' marketing department about brand partnerships
• How ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) and Brand Lift actually work
• Why camera ambassadors are conversion rates, not artists
• Benny Blanco making hits on gear that looks like a dorm room liquidation sale
• The difference between gear that enables vs. gear that replaces skill
• Why musicians fetishize sound while photographers fetishize newness
• Where pride should actually live (spoiler: not in your kit)

Quotable Moments

"When everyone is a photographer, then no one is an artist." — 1890s photography critic

"Ownership feels like mastery. That if you just have the right tool, the hard parts quietly disappear."

"I wanted the gate to exist. I wanted the years to mean something visible. I wanted effort to leave a mark you could recognize on sight."

"You're not a partner. You're a line item. An asset on a balance sheet. A tactic in a marketing plan."

"The R5 doesn't make me a better photographer. It makes me a more capable photographer—but only if I already know what I'm doing."

"The tool enables. But it doesn't create. Vision creates. Mastery creates. And you can't buy either of those."

"Musicians fetishize sound. Photographers fetishize newness."

"Pride is expensive. You can put pride in your work. Or you can put pride in your kit. One costs time. The other costs money."

"If the most interesting thing about your work is what you shot it on, you didn't make work. You made a purchase."

For Photographers Who:

• Feel pressure to upgrade every time a new camera drops
• Wonder if they need "better" gear before they can do "real" work
• Have ever felt embarrassed showing up with older equipment
• Are curious what brand ambassador programs actually are
• Struggle with gear acquisition vs. skill development
• Want permission to master what they already have
• Need to hear that the camera they own is enough

Referenced in This Episode

Benny Blanco - Mix with the Masters
"Benny Blanco producing 'Eastside' and 'Younger And Hotter Than Me' | Trailer"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gnRFrJ3ytY
(Audio clips used with reference to educational context)

Historical Context:

• George Eastman & the Kodak Camera (1888)
• The Hartford Courant warnings about "Kodak Fiends" (1890s)
• Photography industry panic about "Button-Pressers"

Musicians Referenced:

• Benny Blanco (producer: "Eastside," Selena Gomez, Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber)
• Willie Nelson and "Trigger" (Martin N-20 guitar, 50+ years)

Gear Theory:

• ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)
• Brand Lift metrics
• Attribution modeling in influencer marketing

Links & Resources

The Terrible Photographer
Website: http://terriblephotographer.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/terriblephotographer/

Lessons From A Terrible Photographer (The Book)
https://www.terriblephotographer.com/the-book
(Features full chapter: "Gear, Fear, and Peers")

Support the Show (Buy Me a Coffee)
https://www.terriblephotographer.com/support

Subscribe to Pub Notes (The Newsletter)
https://the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb

Patrick Fore
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patrickfore/

Get in Touch

Have a question? A story? Hate mail?
I respond to everything.
Email's in the show notes.

Credits

Podcast written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore
Music licensed through Epidemic Sound & Blue Dot Sessions
Episode photography by Michael Soledad | Instagram: @michsoledesign
Audio clips from "Benny Blanco producing 'Eastside' and 'Younger And Hotter Than Me'" courtesy of Mix with the Masters

Recorded from my garage in San Diego, California

Stay curious. Stay courageous. Stay terrible.

Not because they can't see what's good. Because they can't choose what matters.

This episode is about the violence of editing—the courage it takes to kill good images, the ego that dies in the process, and why great portfolios are built on rhythm, not range.

I tell the story of a La Jolla shoot where I took 1,900 frames in two hours and couldn't figure out which ones to keep. About losing my sense of up and down. About the underwater feeling of staring at 300 good images and having no idea which one cuts through.

And about what happened when I finally admitted I was too close to see.

This isn't about workflow. It's about authorship.

Topics:

• Why volume doesn't equal value
• The question that kills most of your images
• What actually gets destroyed in the edit (spoiler: it's not the photos)
• Editing as storytelling, not inventory
• When to admit you're too underwater to choose

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Walter Murch – Film editor (Apocalypse Now, The English Patient, The Conversation)

LINKS & RESOURCES

Website: http://terriblephotographer.com

Lessons From A Terrible Photographer (The Book): https://www.terriblephotographer.com/the-book

Support the show, buy me a coffee: https://www.terriblephotographer.com/support

Subscribe to Pub Notes (The Newsletter): https://the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb

Terrible Photographer on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/terriblephotographer/

Patrick Fore on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patrickfore/

CREDITS

Podcast written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore

Music licensed through Epidemic Sound & Blue Dot Sessions

Recorded from my garage in San Diego, California

CONTACT

Questions? Thoughts? Hate mail?
Email me. I respond to everything.
patrick@terriblephotographer.com

Stay curious.
Stay courageous.
Stay terrible.

When a client says "I want exactly this," are they hiring you to execute their vision—or are they asking you to solve a problem they can't articulate?

This is the first episode in a five-part series called Heresies—where we say the uncomfortable things the industry doesn't want you to think too hard about.

In this episode: Why listening to your client might be killing your work. Why taste is a technical skill, not a preference. And the difference between being a problem-solver and being an expensive tripod.

We'll talk about threading the needle between "authentic" and "amateur." About knowing when you're hired as an artist versus a technician. And about the clients who want you to recreate their blurry iPhone photos of tennis racquets at impossible angles.

(Yes, that's a real story. No, I don't want to talk about it.)

This isn't about ignoring your clients. It's about knowing when to translate what they're asking for into what they actually need.

What We Cover

• Why your job isn't just to press the button
• The difference between consumer clients (hiring your taste) and commercial clients (hiring problem-solving)
• How to build a visual vocabulary (and why scrolling Instagram doesn't count)
• Red flags that signal a client wants a proxy, not a photographer
• What "taste as a technical skill" actually means
• The museum exercise: 20 minutes, one painting, no phone

Quotable Moments

"You're not an equipment rental with legs."

"Clients don't hire us to give them what they want. They hire us to give them something beautiful. Something effective."

"If you don't have a vision, you can't translate someone else's vision."

"You're not a photographer. You're just someone with a camera, waiting for instructions."

"The cost of saying yes to the wrong client isn't just time and money. It's the slow, quiet erosion of why you started doing this in the first place."

For Photographers Who:

• Struggle with confidence when clients have "very specific ideas"
• Default to saying "yes" even when the request doesn't make sense
• Haven't developed their visual voice yet (and don't know where to start)
• Are tired of being treated like a vending machine
• Need permission to trust their expertise
• Want to know how to spot bad clients before signing the contract

Links & Resources

The Terrible Photographer
Website: http://terriblephotographer.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/terriblephotographer/

Lessons From A Terrible Photographer (The Book)
https://www.terriblephotographer.com/the-book

Support the Show (Buy Me a Coffee)
https://www.terriblephotographer.com/support

Subscribe to Pub Notes (The Newsletter)
https://the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb

Patrick Fore
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patrickfore/

Get in Touch

Have a question? A story? Hate mail?
I respond to everything.
Email's in the show notes.

Credits

Podcast written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore
Music licensed through Epidemic Sound & Blue Dot Sessions
Episode photography from Adobe Stock & Unsplash
Recorded from my garage in San Diego, California

Stay curious. Stay courageous. Stay terrible.

There's a woman in Bangkok who's been selling noodles from the same corner for 43 years. She turned down Bon Appétit. Not because she's shy. Because she didn't want to cook for strangers with expectations.

This episode started with a voicemail from Jason, a listener in North Carolina who shoots photos of his kids and has no interest in going pro. He called me out for ignoring non-professionals. And he was right.

What I didn't expect was how much his email would make me confront something I've been avoiding: I'm envious of amateur photographers. Not because they're bad at what they do. Because they still have the thing I traded away.

This is about the cost of professionalization. About the difference between making work because you have to versus making work because the work demands to be made. About freedom, money, and what happens when you refuse to let the transaction define the craft.

If you've ever felt like you're not a "real" photographer because you don't charge... this one's for you.

And if you're a pro who's forgotten why you started... this one's for you too.

Key Themes:

• Transactional Legitimacy (the belief that payment equals worth)
• The cost of going professional vs. staying amateur
• Creative envy and what it reveals
• Being "unowned" in a world where everything is for sale
• The difference between a career and a practice

Episode Timestamps:

0:00 - Cold Open: The Noodle Queen of Bangkok
1:15 - Handshake & Episode Intro
2:00 - Jason's Voicemail (Part 1): "I'm not a professional nor do I want to be"
3:00 - Confession: Why I avoid amateur photographers (and the envy underneath)
4:30 - Bellingham, 2012: When I was Jason
6:00 - Jason's Voicemail (Part 2): "We doubt our abilities because we are not getting paid"
6:30 - Alison's Story: The physical therapist photographing her mother's Alzheimer's
16:00 - Naming The Enemy: Transactional Legitimacy
19:00 - The Pivot: What professionals can't do (that amateurs can)
22:30 - The Resolution: Neither path is pure. Both cost something.
28:00 - The Restoration: What the professional world needs from non-professionals
30:30 - The Light Leak: Being unowned

Mentioned in This Episode:

• Episode 39: Creative directing your own life (referenced when discussing overthinking)
• Lake Padden, Bellingham WA
• Fairhaven, Bellingham WA
• Mount Baker, WA

Key Quote:

"You are not beneath professionals. You are adjacent to freedom they lost."

For Jason:

Thank you for the email. Thank you for the voicemail. Thank you for calling me out. This episode wouldn't exist without you.

LINKS & RESOURCES:

The Terrible Photographer:
Website: http://terriblephotographer.com
Subscribe to Pub Notes (Newsletter): https://the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/terriblephotographer/

Lessons From A Terrible Photographer (The Book):
https://www.terriblephotographer.com/the-book

Support The Show:
Buy me a coffee: https://www.terriblephotographer.com/support

Connect:
Patrick Fore on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patrickfore/
Email: patrick@terriblephotographer.com

CREDITS:

Podcast written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore
 Music licensed through Epidemic Sound
Intro Song: Free Spirit by Max Volante
 Episode photography from lucas.george.wendt
Recorded in my garage in San Diego, California

A NOTE FOR NON-PROFESSIONALS (Amatures):

If you're listening to this and you don't charge for your work—if you shoot because you love it, not because you're building a business—please know this:

Your work matters.
 Your perspective matters.
 Your freedom matters.

You're not less than. You're not waiting to become real.

You're already real.

And some of us wish we still had what you have.

SHARE THIS EPISODE:

Know someone who needs to hear this? A parent with a camera. A hobbyist who doubts themselves. A pro who's forgotten why they started.

Send them this episode. Let them know they're not alone.

Three hundred years. That's how long my family has been in America. Jamestown. Virginia. Colonial laborers. Post-Civil War homesteaders in Missouri. And not one of them—not one—ever owned anything that lasted.

In 1726, when a British clerk wrote "Fore" instead of "Fauer," my family's name changed. But the pattern didn't.

This episode isn't about New Year's resolutions or fresh starts. It's about lazy rivers, tubes, and boats. It's about realizing you're floating in a system you never chose—and that everyone in your family has been floating for centuries. It's about being the first one to try to get out, even when you don't know how to swim.

I talk about my MIT PhD brother who doesn't know how to freelance. A wedding photographer who realized he became his father. And why I'm angry at ancestors I've never met for never trying to break a pattern I now have to fight.

If you've ever felt like you're working hard but never building anything. Like you're trapped between staying comfortable and risking everything. Like you're the first person in your family trying to do something different with no map and no model—this one's for you.

Not because I have answers.

Because I'm in the middle of the same fight.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• The 300-year pattern: Jamestown to Missouri, laborers to homesteaders—and why nothing changed
• Why "legally free but economically pinned" explains my entire family history
• Boats, tubes, and swimmers: understanding the lazy river of life
• My brother's phone call: when an MIT PhD doesn't know how to freelance
• Why I'm angry at dead people who had no choice
• What it means to labor for yourself vs. labor for someone else's dream
• The question: Do you see the river? And if you do, what are you going to do about it?

WANT A SEAT AT THE TABLE?

The Table is a small, email-based conversation space for creative people in the long middle. No apps. No feeds. No pressure. No posting requirements. Just occasional emails about the real stuff—and the option to reply, or not.

Some weeks you'll get a reflection. Some weeks a question. Some weeks nothing. Sometimes it's about creative existential dread. Sometimes it's about whether gaffer tape smells different depending on the brand.

It's a pub table. But everyone's wearing sweatpants. And nobody has to drive home.

If you want a seat, email: patrick@terriblephotographer.com
Subject line: "I'd like a seat at The Table"

LINKS:

Website: http://terriblephotographer.com

The Newsletter: Sign up for Pub Notes – Musings, updates, and things I probably shouldn't say in public.
terriblephotographer.com/newsletter

Support the Show: Help keep the lights on
terriblephotographer.com/support

Email the Host: patrick@terriblephotographer.com
Questions, thoughts, rage at your own ancestors—I respond to everything.

So now what?

In the finale of "The Long Middle" series, Patrick explores sociologist Ray Oldenburg's concept of "The Third Space"—the pubs, coffee shops, and barbershops where community used to happen naturally. He examines why these spaces disappeared, how COVID delivered the final blow, and why digital spaces (Reddit, Discord) might be Third Space for some people while remaining incomplete for others.

This episode is both diagnosis and prescription: why we're lonely, why it's gotten worse, and the uncomfortable truth that you can't find community—you have to build it. One vulnerable conversation at a time.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Ray Oldenburg's Third Space theory: First Space (home), Second Space (work), Third Space (community)
• Why Third Spaces disappeared: suburbanization, work-from-home, social media performance culture
• How COVID killed Third Space culture permanently (not just temporarily)
• The death of Meetup.com and "social atrophy"—we forgot how to be together
• Why your friend who says "Reddit is my Third Space" isn't wrong (but it's incomplete)
• The difference between performing and being seen in digital spaces
• Why networking events are Second Space disguised as Third Space
• The Leslie paradox: Patrick's only Third Space relationship is digital and 2800 miles away
• You can't find Third Space, you have to build it—starting with ONE person
• Vulnerability first: Be vulnerable → See who responds → Build from there
• Why you need 2-3 real connections, not 100 photographer "friends" (Dunbar's number)
• Consistency over intensity: weekly coffee > annual epic meetup
• The five steps to building your own Third Space (reach out, show up without costume, witness don't fix, make it regular, expand carefully)
• What to talk about (the real stuff: struggles, jealousy, exhaustion, the work you're hiding)
• What NOT to talk about (how busy you are, your big clients, industry gossip)
• Introducing The Table: Patrick's email-based Third Space experiment for people in the long middle

THE CHALLENGE: Reach out to ONE person this week. Not to network, not to collaborate. Just: "I've been thinking about creative loneliness lately. Want to grab coffee?" Then show up without your costume and talk about what you're actually struggling with.

KEY QUOTES: "Third Space doesn't exist until someone creates it. And it doesn't start with a community. It starts with one person."

"Digital-only Third Space is incomplete. You need to look someone in the eye. You need to sit across a table from another human. You need to exist in a room where you can't edit yourself before you speak."

"You can't outsource belonging. You can't scroll your way to community. You can't consume your way to connection."

"COVID didn't pause Third Space culture. It killed it. And we're still living in the wreckage."

WANT A SEAT AT THE TABLE?

The Table is a small, email-based conversation space for creative people in the long middle. No apps. No feeds. No pressure. No posting requirements. Just occasional emails about the real stuff—and the option to reply, or not.

Some weeks you'll get a reflection. Some weeks a question. Some weeks nothing. Sometimes it's about creative existential dread. Sometimes it's about whether gaffer tape smells different depending on the brand.

It's a pub table. But everyone's wearing sweatpants. And nobody has to drive home.

If you want a seat, email: patrick@terriblephotographer.com
Subject line: "I'd like a seat at The Table"

LINKS:

Website: terriblephotographer.com

The Newsletter: Sign up for Pub Notes – Musings, updates, and things I probably shouldn't say in public.
terriblephotographer.com/newsletter

Support the Show: Help keep the lights on
terriblephotographer.com/support

Email the Host: patrick@terriblephotographer.com
Questions, thoughts, rage—I respond to everything.

CREDITS:

• Music: Licensed through Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions
• Written and Produced by: Patrick Fore
• Episode Image by Mason Dahl - https://www.instagram.com/masondahlphoto/

In Part 3 of The Long Middle series, Patrick examines the hierarchies that divide creative professionals, and admits his own complicity in enforcing them.

From a tense Zoom call about Profoto versus Godox, to being dismissed in Clubhouse rooms, to looking down on other photographers while feeling looked down upon himself, this episode pulls no punches about how gatekeeping actually works, who it serves, and why we keep it alive.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• The Profoto story: when "professional standards" are actually access standards
• What gatekeeping actually means (and the Kurt Lewin research that defined it)
• Why the kitchen brigade system is the perfect metaphor for creative hierarchies
• A scene from Pixar's Ratatouille and how it quietly becomes the emotional center of the episode
• How wedding, portrait, and fashion photographers face different versions of the same dismissal
• The pattern across all creative fields: writers, musicians, filmmakers, designers
• Patrick's confession: the times he's been the gatekeeper
• Why the hierarchy survives (it's not the people at the top—it's the people in the middle)
• The Clubhouse dismissals and the Taylor Guitars "cool kids table"
• How hiding your "wrong" work keeps you complicit in the system
• What leadership actually looks like: extending an arm instead of pulling it up behind you

THE CHALLENGE: The next time someone asks "What are you working on?"—tell them the truth. Not the impressive version. Not the potential job. The actual work you're doing right now. Say it like it's legitimate work. Because it is.

KEY QUOTE: "The hierarchy doesn't survive because the people at the top enforce it. It survives because the people in the middle enforce it. Because we're so afraid of being dismissed, we dismiss someone else first."

LINKS:

Website: terriblephotographer.com

The Newsletter: Sign up for Pub Notes – Musings, updates, and things I probably shouldn't say in public.
terriblephotographer.com/newsletter

Support the Show: Help keep the lights on
terriblephotographer.com/support

Email the Host: patrick@terriblephotographer.com
Questions, thoughts, rage—I respond to everything.

CREDITS

• Music: Licensed through Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions

• Written and Produced by: Patrick Fore

• Episode Image: Licensed through Adobe Stock

In this bonus episode, Patrick Fore deconstructs the word "Framing." It’s not just the rule of thirds or leading lines—it’s authorship. It’s the decision to show truth over comfort, and humanity over "hero energy." Patrick opens up about his own struggle with "cowering" to the moment and why we’ve all become a little too good at making the world look beige.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The difference between geometry (composition) and power (framing).
• Why Christopher Anderson’s refusal to "smooth" his subjects is an act of courage.
• The "Light Switch" metaphor: How small, boring details tell the biggest stories.
• How to stop being a decorator and start being an author again.
• Why being a "Terrible Photographer" means being terrible at following the rules that kill your voice.

ABOUT CHRISTOPHER ANDERSON

Christopher Anderson is a member of Magnum Photos and is widely considered one of the most influential photographers of his generation. He first gained international recognition for his work documenting the Haitian refugee crisis, where the boat he was traveling on sank in the Caribbean—work that earned him the Robert Capa Gold Medal.

Whether he is documenting conflict, the streets of Shenzhen, or the corridors of power in D.C., Anderson’s work is defined by an intense, emotional intimacy and a refusal to provide a "clean" or "commercial" version of reality.

Find his work here:

• Website: christopherandersonphoto.com
• Instagram: @christopherandersonphoto
• Monographs: Approximate Joy, STUMP, and Pia.

LINKS

• Website: terriblephotographer.com
• The Newsletter: Sign up for Pub Notes – Musings, updates, and things I probably shouldn't say in public.
• Support the Show: Help keep the lights on
• Email the Host: patrick@terriblephotographer.com
  • Questions, hate mail, and existential spirals are all welcome.

CREDITS

• Music: Licensed through Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions.
• Written and Produced by: Patrick Fore

In Part 2 of "The Long Middle" series, Patrick explores the costumes we wear—not just the black clothes and gear, but the professional roles and personas that keep us safe and isolated at the same time.

From 17th-century Japanese Kabuki theater to APA mixers in San Diego, this episode examines why we choose invisibility, what happens when we need established roles to feel legitimate, and the five-second decision that keeps us from connection.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• The Kurogo: Japanese stagehands who dress in black to become "invisible" on stage
• Why confidence comes from established roles (the stage, the call sheet, the contract)
• A painful story about leaving a networking event after two minutes
• How neurodivergence affects ambiguous social spaces
• Why fifteen years of mastery on set doesn't translate to confidence at a mixer
• The difference between avatars (who have followers) and humans (who have friends)
• What happens when you choose the beach over the risk

THE CHALLENGE: The next time someone asks "How's it going?"—tell them one true thing. Not "busy." Not "crushing it." One honest thing. Drop the shield for ten seconds.

LINKS:

Website: terriblephotographer.com

The Newsletter: Sign up for Pub Notes – Musings, updates, and things I probably shouldn't say in public.
terriblephotographer.com/newsletter

Support the Show: Help keep the lights on
terriblephotographer.com/support

Email Patrick: patrick@terriblephotographer.com
Questions, hate mail, and existential spirals are all welcome.

CREDITS:

Music licensed through Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions.

Episode Artwork Photo by @erwimadethis

Written and Produced by Patrick Fore

NEXT WEEK: Part 3 – "The Enemy"
If the Costume hides us, Envy divides us. We're talking about scarcity mindset, comparison, and why we see our peers as threats instead of allies.

If you've ever felt like you're playing your heart out while everyone walks past... this episode is for you.

This is Part 1 of a 4-part series called "The Long Middle"—about that specific season in a creative life where you've mastered the skills, built the business, done everything "right"... but something still feels off.

Today's episode is about the loneliness that comes with expertise. The isolation that happens when you get really good at something and realize fewer and fewer people can see what you're actually doing.

You're not broken. You're not ungrateful. You're not alone.

You're just operating at a level where most people can't witness the craft.

IN THIS EPISODE

The Joshua Bell Experiment
Why one of the world's greatest violinists was invisible in a subway station—and what that tells us about creative loneliness.

Sarah's Email
A successful wedding photographer who's "disappearing into the work" despite doing everything right. Her story will sound familiar.

The Loneliness of Mastery
The higher you climb in your craft, the lonelier it gets. Not because you're failing—because fewer people can see what you're actually doing.

Three Types of Loneliness

• Unintentional Loneliness (physical isolation)
• Deliberate Loneliness (choosing not to explain yourself)
• Experiential Loneliness (surrounded by people who don't speak your language)

The Taylor Guitars Story
How shooting a spray robot in a hazmat suit taught me what it feels like to be invisible at the level of expertise.

Gratitude as a Weapon
The difference between genuine gratitude and obligatory gratitude—and why "you should be grateful" has become one of the most damaging phrases in the creative industry.

The Research
Studies on senior executives, designers, and creative professionals all point to the same truth: expertise is isolating. It's documented. It's real. You're not crazy.

Witnessed vs. Consumed
The difference between 10,000 likes and one person who asks, "How did you do that?"

Rivers vs. Pools
Why fast-moving communities (Discord, social media) provide stimulation but not transformation—and what we need instead.

KEY CONCEPTS & FRAMEWORKS

• Experiential Isolation at the Level of Expertise – The loneliness that comes from operating at a level where fewer people can understand what you're doing
• The Seven People Who Stopped – You don't need a thousand people. You need the few who can actually witness the craft.
• Counterfeit Connection – Why engagement rates and subscriber counts feel like food but provide zero nutrition
• The Pool (vs. The River) – Slow, still, deep spaces where you can see your own reflection vs. fast-moving noise

RESEARCH MENTIONED

• "Lonely at the Top" study on senior executives (2018)
• Adobe user research – 60% of designers feel misunderstood by non-creative colleagues
• Three Types of Loneliness framework – Psychological research (University of Chicago)
• The Washington Post Joshua Bell experiment (2007)

QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE

WHAT'S NEXT

This is Part 1 of a 4-part series called "The Long Middle." Over the next three weeks, we'll explore:

• Episode 41: How to recognize your people (and why creative friendship is so hard)
• Episode 42: How to build community without losing your soul
• Episode 43: What The Pool actually looks like when it works

If you're Joshua Bell in the subway right now—if you're doing your best work and feeling completely invisible—email me. Tell me about the work nobody sees.

BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT

Lessons From A Terrible Photographer is now available as a Limited Collector's Box ($69.99).

Includes:

• Signed hardcover book
• Signed photo print
• Field Notes notebook
• Hand-typed letter on my 1920s Corona typewriter
• Access to audiobook & ebook (when released)
• Stickers

Standard hardback coming January 2026.

Get yours: terriblephotographer.com

CONNECT

Email: podcast@terriblephotographer.com
I respond to everything. Seriously. Tell me what bar you just let go of. Tell me about the work nobody sees.

Website: terriblephotographer.com

Instagram: @terriblephotographer

CREDITS

Music in this episode from Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions.

Episode photography provided by Benjamin Behre / Unsplash

Written, Recorded, Produced & Edited by me, Patrick Fore.

EPISODE STATS

Episode: 40
Series: The Long Middle (Part 1 of 4)
Runtime: ~35 minutes

TAGS

#CreativeLoneliness #PhotographyPodcast #CreativeEntrepreneur #MasteryAndIsolation #CreativeCommunity #TheTerriblePhotographer #JoshuaBell #WitnessedNotConsumed #ExpertiseIsolation #CommercialPhotography #CreativeLife #LongMiddle #ThePool

LISTENER SUPPORT

If this episode resonated with you, the best way to support the show is to:

1. Share it with one person who needs to hear this
2. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
3. Email me your story—I read everything

This show exists because you listen. Thank you for being here.

© 2025 The Terrible Photographer Podcast. All rights reserved.

It’s easy to look at the monsters of the influencer economy and think, "I am nothing like them." But if you peel back the layers of how we document our own lives, the difference might be smaller than we’d like to admit.

In this episode, we dig into the "Curator's Disease"—the urge to professionalize our own existence. We look at how commercial production techniques have trickled down from ad agencies to our Saturday mornings, how we reverse-engineer our lives to fit a "Lululemon" aesthetic, and the exhausted reality of treating your family like supporting cast members.

We discuss the difference between capturing a beautiful moment and interrupting a life to manufacture one. It’s time to get out of the Director’s Chair.

In this episode:

• The Monsters: Why the Ruby Franke and LaBrant Family stories aren't just isolated tragedies, but symptoms of a wider infection.
• The Lululemon Brain Worm: How commercial "lifestyle" marketing taught us to fake our own weekends.
• The Composite Client: Patrick breaks down a real commercial shoot to show how "authenticity" is manufactured in a conference room.
• The Interruption: The critical difference between seeing beautiful light and forcing your kids to stand in it.
• The Unpaid Internship: Why you’re exhausted from trying to hit commercial production standards on a home-video budget.

Connect with The Terrible Photographer:

• Website: The Terrible Photographer
• The Newsletter: Sign up for Pub Notes – Musings, updates, and things I probably shouldn't say in public.
• Support the Show: Help keep the lights on
• Email the Host: patrick@terriblephotographer.com – Questions, hate mail, and existential spirals are all welcome.

Credits:

• Music licensed through Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions.
• Episode Artwork licensed through Adobe Stock.
• Written and Produced by Patrick Fore

In this episode, Patrick explores the physics of light, the "hostage negotiation" of the exposure triangle, and why we are so terrified of grain. We look at how the market has colonized our vision, leading us to trade atmosphere for information and "safe" images for honest ones.

Most importantly, Patrick confesses to "art directing" his own daughter's childhood—prioritizing perfect light over real memories—and asks if it's possible to trade competence back for presence.

In this episode, we talk about:

• The story of the "Magnificent Eleven" and Robert Capa’s D-Day photos.
• The Physics of Light: Why the exposure triangle is a hostage situation.
• Why ISO is like the volume knob on cheap speakers.
• The "Cultural Clean": Why Instagram and modern cinema feel so flat.
• A personal confession: Killing the moment to save the exposure.
• Why "Denoise" is the enemy of the soul.

Support the Show: If you enjoy these ramblings, or if this episode made you feel slightly less guilty about your grainy photos, consider fueling the next one. You can buy me a coffee (or let's be honest, a beer) to help keep the mics on and the existential spirals coming.

• Fuel the Mess: terriblephotographer.com/support

Links & Resources:

• Website: terriblephotographer.com
• Email the Show: patrick@terriblephotographer.com — Send questions, thoughts, or hate mail. I read everything.

Credits:

• Episode Photo: Hulki Okan Tabak
• Music: Blue Dot Sessions
• Sound Effects: Epidemic Sound

In this episode, we're deconstructing the biggest question photographers face: What makes a photo "good"? How do we measure it? Who decides? And why do we keep building portfolios that are technically perfect but emotionally dead?

This is the first episode in a new mid-week series called "Basics, Deconstructed" we take the elementary concepts of photography and tear them down until we find the bone.

In This Episode:

• Why technical perfection is the enemy of art
• The difference between "High Notes" (sharpness, perfect skin tones) and "Bass Notes" (the blur, the shadow, the grit)
• What happened when an art buyer tore apart my "perfect" portfolio
• How to stop shooting out of fear and start shooting out of soul
• The hardest lesson: being shrewd enough to interrupt the performance

Key Quote:

"I don't hire photographers to be commercial. I hire technicians to be sharp. I hire photographers to make me feel something."

Contact & Support:

📧 Email: patrick@terriblephotographer.com
(Questions, thoughts, hate mail—I respond to everything.)

🎵 Music: epidemicsound.com

☕ Support the show: https://www.terriblephotographer.com/support

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/terriblephotographer

📬 Newsletter (Pub Notes): https://the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb

“What am I doing wrong?”

A late-night Zoom call.

A missed phone call that might have cost me a job.

Fabric mocking me at 2 AM.

Postponing Christmas.

Pretending patience is a virtue when really it’s just a financial liability.

This one is not a framework or a lesson.

It is a confession.

A pressure valve.

A look at the part of the creative journey nobody posts about because it is messy and embarrassing and makes you question whether you even belong in the room.

We get into:

• Saying yes to work you should have said no to
• Anxiety disguised as professionalism
• The career panic nobody warns you about
• The gap between what we preach and what we actually do
• What our kids see when we are barely holding it together
• The tension between craft, performance, and being human

If you have ever wondered whether you are behind, off-track, or quietly failing your way through your creative life, this episode is for you.

Music Provided by:

https://www.epidemicsound.com

Support the Show

If the podcast means something to you, or if it helps you feel a little less alone in this creative circus, you can support the show here:

https://www.terriblephotographer.com/support

Your support keeps the lights on, the episodes coming, and the midnight fabric-styling breakdowns to a minimum. Thank you for being part of this.

Not because I don’t have an opinion about AI — but because I have too many feelings about it. Gratitude. Fear. Anger. Wonder. All tangled together.

AI has become my external brain — a tool that helps me function, organize, even parent. And at the same time, it’s the thing that might end my career.

In this episode, I talk honestly about what Adobe’s new AI tools mean for photographers, artists, and the humans behind the craft. About the moment when “photo editing” turns into “people editing.” And about what we lose when images no longer require someone to be there — to see, to choose, to feel.

Because when everything becomes generated, the rarest thing left might just be the real.

This isn’t a tech breakdown. It’s a gut check.

In This Episode:

• The paradox of AI as both accessibility and threat
• Adobe’s new AI tools and what they mean for photographers
• The difference between CGI in film and AI in photography
• Consent, ethics, and the human line in image manipulation
• The fear of becoming irrelevant — and the deeper truth underneath
• Why the practice of photography still matters more than the product
• How to reclaim your craft in the age of automation

Featured Voices:

A few members of The Terrible Community share how AI makes them feel — not what they think about it.

Light Leak:

Go make something where the practice is the point.

Shoot something you’ll never post.

Feel the weight of the camera in your hand — that’s what real still feels like.

Because that’s the thing they can’t generate.

That’s the thing they can’t take from you.

Listen If You’ve Ever Thought:

• “AI is helping me — and that scares me.”
• “What’s the point of creating when machines can do it faster?”
• “I’m grateful for this tech… and I hate that I’m grateful.”
• “I miss when photography still felt like something.”

Credits:

Written & Narrated by: Patrick Fore

Produced by: The Terrible Photographer

Community Voicemails: Members of The Terrible List

Music & Sound Design: Blue Dot Sessions
Robots by Flight of the Concords (1-minute)

Connect:

• 🖤 terriblephotographer.com
• 🎙️ Leave a voicemail for future episodes: terriblephotographer.com/voicemail
• 📰 Join the newsletter: The Terrible List
• 📸 Instagram: @theterriblephotographer

I was in my garage last Tuesday, shooting beef tallow. Yes, beef tallow—jarred cow fat with a marketing department. And while I'm adjusting highlights on solidified animal fat for the fourth time, I'm thinking: I used to shoot for Rolling Stone. What happened?

Then my friend Candice texted. An illustrator in St. Louis. I asked how business was going.

"Everything is a garbage fire out there."

And that's when I realized: we're both drowning. But for completely opposite reasons.

She doesn't have enough work. I have plenty of work—just the wrong work. And neither of us could shake the feeling that something bigger was happening.

So I dug into the data. Economic reports, central bank surveys, and consumer debt studies. And what I found explains why so many freelancers feel like they're either sprinting or sinking right now.

The economy didn't just slow down. It split in half.

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

The Three-Restaurant Economy

• Why Restaurant Two (the middle market) closed and nobody told you
• Where the money actually went (and who's still spending)
• Why some creatives are drowning in commodity work while others have empty calendars

The Economic Data (Made Human)

• The US service sector flatlined in September 2025 (ISM hit 50.0)
• 37% of European businesses postponed investment plans
• 84% of people with credit card debt are cutting non-essentials
• The top 20% now account for two-thirds of all consumption

What to Actually Do Tomorrow

• How to audit your clients into three categories (A, B, C)
• Three questions to ask yourself this week
• The 80/20 split that keeps you sane
• Where to find recession-resistant work (even if it's unglamorous)

Why Craft Still Matters

• What my daughter Lucy's drawings taught me about showing up
• My brother Charlie's legacy (and why it has nothing to do with accolades)
• Why being strategic doesn't mean becoming cynical

Timestamps:

00:00 - Cold Open: Beef Tallow in My Garage
08:45 - The Text Message That Changed Everything
12:30 - The Three-Restaurant Economy (The Metaphor)
18:20 - The Economic Data: What Actually Happened
26:15 - Why We're Both Drowning
31:40 - Where the Money Actually Is (Three Specific Markets)
38:50 - What to Actually Do Tomorrow (Tactical Actions)
48:20 - The Productivity Lie (And the Stoic Response)
53:10 - The Shadow Question (What Are You Actually Ashamed Of?)
58:30 - Why This Still Matters (Lucy, Charlie, and Showing Up)
01:06:45 - Outro

Key Takeaways:

1. The middle market collapsed. The clients with mid-tier budgets who valued creative work—many of them can't access credit or have cut discretionary spending. That's not a personal failure. That's structural economics.
2. You're either at Restaurant One or Restaurant Three. Commodity work (fast and cheap) or luxury/corporate work (selective and high-end). Restaurant Two is closed.
3. Three sectors are still hiring aggressively: IT (35%), Finance/Real Estate (32%), Healthcare/Life Sciences (28%). Target them.
4. The 80/20 rule saves your sanity: 80% of your energy goes to work that pays bills. 20% goes to work that feeds your soul. Stop trying to make every project be both.
5. Craft matters, even when the client doesn't. Showing up with integrity to unsexy work isn't settling. It's professionalism. And it's what keeps you in the game.

Resources Mentioned:

Economic Data Sources:

• ISM Services Index (September 2025)
• European Central Bank Credit Standards Survey (Q3 2025)
• Consumer Debt Studies (2025)

Strategic Frameworks:

• Marcus Aurelius on control (Meditations)
• The 80/20 split for creative sustainability
• Three-category client audit (A/B/C framework)

What's Next:

If this episode resonated with you, text a fellow creative and ask them: "How are you? Really?" Because the loneliest part of this moment isn't the struggle—it's the belief that you're the only one struggling.

And if you want to talk more about navigating the bifurcated creative economy, hit me up on Instagram @patrickfore or email me at patrick@terriblephotographer.com

The garbage fire is real. But so are we.

About The Terrible Photographer Podcast:

This is a show for creative humans navigating the messy reality of making work that matters while also paying rent. We talk about identity, craft, failure, and the absurdity of the creative industry—with radical honesty and zero bullshit.

If you're tired of toxic positivity and gear reviews, you're in the right place.

More Episodes: http://terriblephotographer.com
Book: Lessons From a Terrible Photographer (coming Dec 2025)

Credits:

Hosted, Written, and Produced by: Patrick Fore
Music: Epidemic Sound
Recorded in: San Diego, California

Support the show: If this episode helped you, the best thing you can do is share it with another creative who needs to hear it. Word of mouth keeps this show alive.

In this episode, I sit down with a story that's been eating at me for weeks — a conversation at a coffee shop that revealed something uncomfortable about regret, haunted creatives, and the ghosts of unmade work.

This isn't about toxic positivity or hustle culture. It's about understanding the difference between someone who's tired and someone who's haunted. Between love and regret. Between the people who will protect your ideas and the ones who will kill them — often without realizing it.

And if I'm honest, it's about recognizing when we become those people ourselves.

In This Episode

The Coffee Shop Moment A conversation with a photographer friend that starts with excitement and ends with something closer to mourning.

The Difference Between Tired and Haunted Why some people poke holes in your ideas — and it has nothing to do with you.

Three Faces of Haunting

• The perfectionist paralyzed by an impossible vision
• The silent avoider who pretends not to see your success
• The one with all the resources who just... doesn't

The Idea Graveyard My own confession: the photo essay about my hometown that will never exist, and what it taught me about shelf life.

Love vs. Regret How my wife Jaimi saved me from launching a business I didn't actually want — and how to tell the difference between questions that protect you and questions that undermine you.

The Physics of Regret How other people's ghosts create friction that converts your creative momentum into heat, defensiveness, and eventual paralysis.

Protecting Your Butterflies Practical strategies for guarding your ideas and building a "Go" list instead of a "Know" list.

Key Takeaways

• Ideas have a life of their own — and a shelf life. They don't wait for you to be ready.
• "Yeah, maybe" is the sound of a butterfly dying.
• Tired people say, "I'm exhausted, but that sounds amazing." Haunted people poke holes.
• The dream can become the cage — perfectionism is just another form of paralysis.
• Friction is cumulative: each skeptical question converts your creative energy into defensive heat.
• Most haunted people aren't villains. They're good people carrying ghosts.
• The only thing worse than starting something and failing is not starting something at all.

Quotable Moments

"He wasn't trying to kill my idea. He was mourning his own."

"When your idea gets that big, that expensive, that unreachable — it becomes a shield. The dream has become the cage."

"Ideas have a shelf life. They start fresh, urgent, necessary. Leave them too long, they spoil."

"Haunted people ask questions to protect themselves. People who love you ask questions to protect you."

"Friction converts kinetic energy into heat. Your momentum gets converted into defensiveness. Your creative energy burns off as anxiety."

"The only thing worse than starting something and failing... is not starting something at all." — Seth Godin

"You can't hitch your momentum to parked cars."

The Light Leak Assignment

Make two lists:

List One: The Haunted People who respond to your excitement with skepticism, apathy, or "yeah, maybe." They don't get access to your butterflies.

List Two: The Builders The ones who finish, ship, say "fuck yes," and offer help instead of obstacles. These are your people.

Stop pitching to List One. Guard your butterflies. Feed them only to people who still believe they're real.

Concepts Explored:

• Friction (physics)
• Ideas as living things with shelf lives
• Haunted vs. tired creatives
• The "Go" list vs. "Know" list

Quote: "The only thing worse than starting something and failing... is not starting something at all." — Seth Godin

Connect With Patrick

Website: patrickfore.com

Instagram: @patrickfore

Podcast: The Terrible Photographer

Book: Lessons From a Terrible Photographer (coming soon)

Credits

Host & Producer: Patrick Fore

Episode Photography: Amy Humphries Find Amy on Instagram: @amyjoyhumphries

Music Licensed Through:

• Epidemic Sound
• Blue Dot Sessions

Support The Show

If this episode resonated with you, here's how you can help:

• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify — it helps other people find the show
• Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it
• Subscribe so you don't miss future episodes
• Send me a DM on Instagram and tell me which list you're on

A Note From Patrick

This episode has been living in my head for weeks. The coffee shop conversation happened months ago, but it took me this long to understand what it was really about.

I hope this gives you permission to protect your ideas. To say "fuck yes" to butterflies when they land on your shoulder. And to stop asking permission from people who stopped saying yes a long time ago.

Thanks for being here.

Until next Tuesday — stay curious, stay courageous, and yeah, stay terrible.

— Patrick

The Terrible Photographer is a podcast for creative humans navigating the messy reality of making work that matters. We don't do hustle culture. We don't do toxic positivity. We do honest conversations about creativity, identity, and finding your voice.

That’s what this week’s episode is about — except the sandwich is a photography competition.

In Gold Star, Patrick unpacks his love-hate relationship with the American Photographic Artists’ Untitled competition — and what it reveals about the creative world’s obsession with approval. From spreadsheets of judges to award-show absurdities like the Oscars and Grammys, this episode digs into why artists still crave validation from systems they don’t even believe in.

It’s funny, frustrated, and a little too honest — a meditation on why we keep chasing the gold stars that will never love us back.

Featuring a clip from Jim Carrey’s Golden Globes speech, a story about Patrick’s first Houston Addy Award, and a Light Leak that challenges you to make something that doesn’t need anyone’s permission to exist.

You’ll hear about:

• Why creative competitions feel like overpriced validation
• The psychology of approval and the decay of validation
• What Jim Carrey can teach us about artistic hunger
• How to stop mistaking opportunity for illusion
• Why the real reward is the right to keep doing the work

Mentioned in this episode:

• American Photographic Artists (APA Untitled Competition)
• Jim Carrey’s 2016 Golden Globes speech
• The Addy Awards (American Advertising Federation)
• Rick Rubin, Diane Arbus, Van Gogh, Tom Sachs

Light Leak: The Paradox of the Work

What if you stopped making work for judges, algorithms, and invisible audiences — and started making the thing that’s too honest to explain?

We all want freedom. Creative freedom, emotional freedom, professional freedom. But here’s the thing nobody tells you:

You can be free… and still live like you’re caged.

In this episode, I break down the three invisible cages every creative person ends up pacing:

• The Industry Cage – tribes, gear cults, status games, and the performance of “real” photographer-ness
• The Creative Cage – safety disguised as style, repetition disguised as voice, consistency as comfort
• The Personal Cage – the scariest one of all: the refusal to put yourself in the work

It starts with a pacing lioness in San Diego, makes a detour through childhood Masonic mystery, and ends in a gallery in LA with a man named Jesse and a story I still can’t shake.

If you’ve ever felt trapped by your own success, your style, your niche, or your silence… this one’s for you.

Light Leak Assignment:

Choose your cage.

Take one honest step outside it.

Before the week ends.

No excuses.

Listen if you’ve ever said:

• “I feel like I’m just doing the same thing over and over.”
• “I’m scared to change because I finally found something that works.”
• “I don’t know how to put myself in my work.”

Support the Show:

This show is 100% listener-supported, which means I’m not selling presets, funnel hacks, or “ten ways to make six figures with your camera.”

But if the episode made you feel something — if it helped you name the cage — I’d love your support.

👉 terriblephotographer.com/support

Three amazing humans have already joined. Be the fourth. Let’s get weird and honest together.

Episode Topics:

• Cult psychology and the photo industry
• The seduction of gear tribes and online identity
• Why consistency might be killing your creativity
• What we’re really afraid of when we avoid vulnerability
• The lioness who still walks her old cage
• What Jesse taught me in a room full of polite creatives

🔗 Other Mentions:

• Episode 28: The Tyranny of Okay – Why Most Creative Work is Just work (I actually listed this as Episode 27 in the episode, but it's Episode 28)
• Terror, Love, and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein
• The Boxcar Children (yes, really)
• The real cost of not evolving

Stay curious. Stay courageous. And yeah… stay terrible.

A few weeks ago, I sent an email to thirty photographers I know. I asked them one question: What's your dirty little secret? The thing you'd never admit publicly. The thought that lives in the back of your brain at 3 AM.

I told them it would be anonymous. I just wanted the truth.

And I got a lot of responses.

This episode is about those secrets. The ones we carry alone. The ones that make us feel like frauds, or failures, or like we've made a massive mistake.

Some of these might be mine. I'm not telling you which ones.

But they're all real. And if you've thought any of them, you're not alone.

The Eight Secrets

1. The Gatekeeping - "I resent [X] photographers and think I'm better than them."
2. The Copycat - "I don't know how to make anything original."
3. The Performance - "I'm not as busy as I make it look."
4. The House of Cards - "I'm one accident away from losing everything."
5. The Golden Handcuffs - "I would walk away if I could afford it."
6. The Minimum Effort - "I'm just trying to get the work out the door."
7. The Burnout - "I don't care about photography anymore."
8. The Long Game - "I'm terrified I won't be able to retire."

Mentioned in This Episode

Leslie's Podcast: Niche to Meet You
A great show about finding your creative lane. Check it out.

Support The Show

This show costs money to make—hosting fees, software, time. If you're getting value from it and want to help keep it going, you can support the show here:

terriblephotographer.com/support

The show's free. It's staying free. But if you want to chip in, I appreciate it.

Stay Connected

📸 Instagram: @terriblephotographer
📧 Newsletter: Subscribe to PubNotes
🌐 Website: terriblephotographer.com

Credits

Music:

• Licensed through Blue Dot Sessions
• "Secret" by The Pierces

Hosted, Written, and Produced by: Patrick Fore

Your Turn

Write down one secret. One thing you've never said out loud. Not for Instagram. Not for anyone else. Just for you.

Take it out of the dark and look at it in the light.

You don't have to solve it. You just have to stop pretending it's not there.

If this episode resonated with you, share it with another creative who needs to hear it. And if you want to support the show, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps more than you know.

In this episode of The Terrible Photographer Podcast, I go after the two liars in my head who keep me trapped in that fake middle ground:

• Hustle Harry — the voice that shames you into guilt if you’re not grinding nonstop.
• Lazy Laura — the voice that convinces you procrastination counts as rest.

Neither one delivers real work. Neither one delivers real rest. And both are lying to us.

Instead, I want to talk about presence — the kind my Border Collie, Loki, embodies every time he drops into that crouch and locks onto a tennis ball like it owes him money. Which leads to…

⏱️ The Light Leak (36:40): The Loki Method — a simple, one-task-at-a-time rebellion against hustle culture and procrastination. Full attention, sacred focus, and real rest are scheduled like it actually matters.

This episode is about rediscovering focus, dignity in the ordinary, and finding a way to work present instead of just working harder.

If you’ve ever felt stuck between fake productivity and fake rest, this one’s for you.

Music provided by Blue Dot Sessions

In this episode, Patrick dives into the beige middle of creative life — the 80% of days that aren’t fireworks or disasters. He tears into LinkedIn’s toxic lobster-and-champagne highlight reel, confesses his late-night burger-level Photoshop grinds, and introduces us to Sarah, a catering coordinator who redefined what “ordinary work” can mean.

Along the way you’ll hear:

• Why “do what you love and you’ll never work a day” is weapons-grade bullshit
• The LinkedIn Lobster Problem: how performative self-promotion makes our Tuesdays feel like failure
• Sarah’s story — the quiet hero who showed Patrick what it means to find dignity in the ordinary
• Stoic wisdom on work, meaning, and why you are more than your job
• The burger vs. lobster framework for understanding creative life (and why burgers matter more than we admit)

This isn’t an episode about settling. It’s about survival, dignity, and gratitude for the work that keeps us human.

The tyranny was never that work is ordinary. The tyranny was believing ordinary wasn’t enough.

👉 Listen if: you’ve ever felt guilty for not loving every second of your “dream job,” or you’re tired of pretending passion is renewable.

👉 Stay for: a story that will make you grateful for the burger on your plate.

Resources & Mentions

• Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
• Epictetus & Marcus Aurelius, on the dignity of ordinary work
• Simone Weil, on attention as generosity

Connect with Patrick

• The Terrible Photographer Newsletter
• Instagram

Credits

• Episode photo by Amirali Mirhashemian
• Music licensed through Blue Dot Sessions

What you’ll hear

• The “booked and blessed” performance vs. the honest reality of burnout
• Why so many photographers feel like they’re always “rushing or dragging” (yes, that scene)
• AI grief: mourning the death of mystery without romanticizing gatekeeping
• Three permissions:

1. Quit the job that killed the artist (without quitting art)
2. Be mediocre while you remember why you started
3. Create for yourself first

• A one-week “Light Leak” experiment to rekindle curiosity—no audience allowed

Chapter guide

• 00:00 — Cold Open: The Zoom call that said the quiet part out loud
• 03:40 — Intro: Why honesty feels dangerous in our industry
• 08:10 — Act I: The Unspoken Pandemic (burnout as a system problem)
• 13:30 — Whiplash Clip: “Rushing or dragging?” (context + reflection)
• 15:10 — Act II: AI Grief (loss of mystery, craft vs. club, why cracks matter)
• 23:40 — Music Moment: Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” and the beauty in brokenness
• 26:10 — Vivian Maier: Calling vs. career; imperfect images that breathe
• 31:20 — Act III: The Three Permissions (with Campbell & practical frames)
• 39:30 — Light Leak: The 7-day private-making experiment
• 43:15 — Close: Choosing living over performing (and why the camera will wait)

The Light Leak (listener assignment)

For the next 7 days, make one thing a day that no one sees but you. No posting, no portfolio, no feedback. Just curiosity. If you want to break the rules publicly, tag #StayTerrible—but the real win is remembering what it feels like to make without an audience.

Pull quotes

• “You can quit being a photographer without quitting photography.”
• “Maybe your creative career needs to die so your creative voice can live.”
• “We’re mourning the death of mystery—and that grief is real.”
• “You were an artist before you had an audience. You still are.”

Resources & references

• Whiplash (2014) — “Rushing or dragging?” rehearsal-room clip
• Finding Vivian Maier (2013) — trailer & story
• Johnny Cash — “Hurt” (cover of Nine Inch Nails)
• Johnny Paycheck — “Take This Job and Shove It”
• Joseph Campbell — ego death/transformation arc (Hero’s Journey themes)
• Rick Rubin — strategic elimination (remove what doesn’t serve the truth)

Music & audio credit

• “Take This Job and Shove It” — Johnny Paycheck (used ~60s after intro)
• “Hurt” — Johnny Cash (used ~30s for commentary)
• Film clip: “Rushing or Dragging” from Whiplash (brief excerpt for critique)
• Trailer audio: Finding Vivian Maier (brief excerpt for commentary)
• Additional music provided and licensed through Green Dot Sessions
• All third-party audio remains the property of its respective rights holders; brief excerpts are used under fair use for commentary/critique.

Episode Photography by Filip Mroz | Unsplash

Who this episode is for

Commercial photographers, portrait shooters, freelancers, art directors, and any creative who’s tired of performing passion while running on empty—and needs permission to step off the treadmill without abandoning their voice.

Stay connected

If this hit a nerve, share it with one photographer who needs the permission too.

Newsletter & Field Notes: terriblephotographer.com

IG: @terriblephotographer • @patrickfore

Business inquiries & notes: patrick@patrickfore.com

Subscribe to Pub Notes: terriblephotographer.com

Some days the world is too loud, too endless. You don’t need another lecture. You need a pint, a hard truth, and a line you can actually carry into tomorrow.

This week’s episode is an experiment I’m calling Pub Meditations — three acts, two meditations per act. Six in total. Each one pulled from the episodes that hit hardest this year, reimagined as something shorter, sharper, and closer to the way the Stoics wrote: notes to survive the day.

In the cold open, I borrow the first couple minutes from Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic — a podcast I can’t recommend enough. Ryan’s voice is where I first realized Stoicism wasn’t about flatlining your emotions, it was about surviving chaos with your humanity intact. Go listen, subscribe, and keep a notebook handy.

What’s inside this episode:

• Act I: Survival as strength training (Still Here · Dim, Not Done)
• Act II: The inner fight (Your Brain Is the Biggest Dick · In the Shadows)
• Act III: Defiance through beauty (The Light Hits Back · We Work, Rome Burns)

Line you carry: Survival. Shadows. Light. Beauty. The tools haven’t changed in two thousand years — keep it short, keep it sharp, keep it honest.

Credits

• Excerpt from The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday — listen here
• Music throughout by Green Dot Sessions