EP141 An Interview with Nick Carver Live

[00:00:02] Speaker A: The camera light. The flash ignites. [00:00:04] Speaker B: Frame the world. [00:00:06] Speaker A: See it right. [00:00:07] Speaker C: The camera light. [00:00:15] Speaker B: Well, good morning, everybody. Or good afternoon, depending on what time zone you're living in. This is the Camera Life podcast. It is the 11th of December here in sunny Australia and it's 9am and this is episode 141 of the camera Life podcast, proudly brought to you by Lucky straps. Head to Luckystraps.com if you are looking for a premium leather camera strap or perhaps a new leather belt for your slacks, your trousers, your pants, or we also sell merch, like hoodies and tees. Show them that. Show them the TJ. [00:00:45] Speaker A: There you go. [00:00:46] Speaker B: So, yeah, head to Lucky Straps.com but anyway, enough about ad reads. Welcome back to the Camera Live podcast. Today we are joined by a special guest all the way from Orange county in California, Southern California, I believe. We're joined by Nick Carver. G', day, Nick. How are you, mate? [00:01:02] Speaker A: I'm great. How you guys doing? [00:01:03] Speaker B: Yeah, that was about the most Australian OCA intro I could do. [00:01:08] Speaker C: G', day, mate. [00:01:09] Speaker A: Well, I just want to make it abundantly clear it is not 9am where I am. I just want people to know that because they may see me do this now and then and I'm not that much of an alcoholic. [00:01:19] Speaker C: What time is it there? [00:01:20] Speaker A: 2Pm, so not quite 5pm but it's a podcast special occasion, so I can. [00:01:27] Speaker B: Well, it is a special occasion. It comes to nerves and my mum always says, you know, it's 5pm somewhere in the world. [00:01:31] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:01:32] Speaker B: You know, let's just lean into that now, of course, Nick, you're a professional commercial photographer, but you also are an educator, a photography educator, predominantly around film, photography, medium, large format, your specialties too. And you're an educator and content creator. You've got a. A huge catalog of videos on YouTube dating back to what was the first one, the ISO one, which we're going to dig into a little bit later. That was. Yes, several times. [00:02:00] Speaker A: That was we did. [00:02:01] Speaker C: You know why? Because I don't know if it's an Australian thing or what, but we all say ISO. Like, everybody don't say so. Everybody does. Is it common in the States for people to say ISO or ISO? [00:02:15] Speaker A: Far fewer people say ISO than ISO. And like, people that have been doing it for 50 years, I mean, they say ISO because no one cares, nor should they care to actually, like, look this up if you're a working professional. I just happen to be one of those types of people where it's like, I. I just get obsessive of like, well, some people are saying it ISO. Some people are saying ISO, what is it? And then. So I end up looking at it and then I feel the need to lecture everybody else on how it's said. [00:02:41] Speaker C: So I love that. That is. So was that. Have any videos been removed from your channel or anything? Or was that the. That was video number one. [00:02:49] Speaker A: That was video number one, I believe, which I think was 11 years ago now. [00:02:53] Speaker B: You look back then, you look as young as Justin does now. [00:02:58] Speaker C: You know, sad. I'm older, too. [00:03:01] Speaker A: I've. I've aged a bit and my, My style has evolved a bit, too. I was going down some. [00:03:09] Speaker A: Experimental paths, let's call it on my, My, my wardrobe, and we start somewhere. Yeah, that's the thing. It was the. It was the ingredients, it was the makings of something that became me. But it was just like, not fully baked yet. So, yeah, little Ralph, if you go back all the way on my YouTube channel. [00:03:26] Speaker B: No, we did, we did. We did a bit of digging. [00:03:30] Speaker C: We did. [00:03:31] Speaker B: But before we dive further into that and before we just say hello to everyone in the chat, can you just give us the quick version of who you are, who you think you are and what you shoot and what you're known for? [00:03:40] Speaker A: Yeah. So I'm a working photographer, as an architectural photographer. So as I always say, I call it architectural because it sounds better than real estate, but I'm really a real estate photographer. It's just commercial properties, so office buildings and industrial buildings, a lot of industrial buildings these days. But I go and photograph these big properties that they sell for millions of dollars or tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. And my photos go into the brochures that sell those things. And that's kind of half my life is that professional work, and then the other half is everything that kind of revolves around YouTube. YouTube's kind of the nucleus of that whole solar system. I know I'm mixing metaphors here, but you get what I'm saying? [00:04:28] Speaker A: But I have online courses that. I have students all over the world taking those, and YouTube feeds students to those courses. So it's all kind of rooted in the, in the YouTube stuff. I've been doing YouTube for quite a while now, so like we said about 12 years, 11 years, something like that. And the, The. The professional side of my work is all digital photography. So I use Canon equipment, modern digital cameras, all that kind of stuff. Never get to use film on that, but I really love shooting film. That's really what I care about. So I do all my YouTube stuff and courses are largely centered around large format cameras, medium format cameras, that kind of thing. So, yeah, that's, that's me. [00:05:18] Speaker C: Yeah. I want to ask about. Later on I'll ask about your commercial work a bit because I couldn't find a ton of info about that floating around on the Internet. So I'm really interested in how that, how that come about, how that business works and that sort of thing. But do you mind if we quickly say hi to a few people in the chat and just see what's up in the live chat? [00:05:36] Speaker A: Please do. [00:05:38] Speaker C: Because always first, Philip Johnson says, morning all. And g', day, Nick. He's always first every show. It's amazing. David Mascara is here from San Francisco. Lucinda, what's up? Paul, Good to see you. LTK. [00:05:55] Speaker C: Down south photo show. Great to see Nick back on Aussie, back in Aussie screens. Lovely guy. Super talented. Looking forward to the chat. These guys. Yeah, you did a podcast with them maybe a year ago or something, I think. [00:06:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Send me one of their books too, which is amazing. Wow. [00:06:11] Speaker B: Nice. [00:06:12] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:06:12] Speaker A: Beautiful. Big, big book. Very, very nice. [00:06:16] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:06:17] Speaker B: Well, we're glad that you agreed to come back on another Australian podcast. We did try to entice an international guest recently to come and join us, quite a renowned UK photographer. And unfortunately he declined, saying, I've already done a podcast in Australia. I'm good, thanks. [00:06:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:32] Speaker B: I feel like he thought he'd already spoken to all 27 of us. [00:06:37] Speaker A: So is he only like, I don't know how many countries there are in the world or maybe he's doing continents? Like, is he only gonna podcast? [00:06:44] Speaker C: Yeah, he's like covered. [00:06:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I've. I've done a Europe podcast. No, thanks. Yeah, I'm good. I've done a North America podcast. [00:06:52] Speaker C: I'll pass. [00:06:52] Speaker B: That's what it felt like. That's what it felt like. [00:06:54] Speaker A: Wow. [00:06:55] Speaker C: It might have been his polite way of saying, you guys don't look very good or professional. So we, we take it as, you. [00:07:01] Speaker B: Know, it could have been that. [00:07:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:03] Speaker B: It could have been the quality of my invitation. Who knows? [00:07:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:06] Speaker C: Who else is in the chat? Lisa Leach. Good to see you. [00:07:09] Speaker B: Hey, Lisa. Hope you're recovering well too. [00:07:12] Speaker C: Stacy, a 8000. Hello from Colorado. Thanks for all of your great work. I assume that's not to us that that's probably directed to you, Nick. [00:07:20] Speaker A: I wouldn't assume so. [00:07:23] Speaker C: Andy McGaughty, Nick Fletcher. What's up, Nick? You shouldn't be working or something, shouldn't you, Nick? Just recently, Nick, in months he tried to climb a mountain and unfortunately didn't quite make it. [00:07:34] Speaker B: Was it Everest? [00:07:36] Speaker C: No, but it was a big one like that. And he didn't quite make it, but his wife made it, but she got blinded and frostbite. So we're waiting. Oh, wow. [00:07:45] Speaker B: Story sounds like a lovely, lovely couple vacation. [00:07:48] Speaker A: Him on the podcast. Why are you interviewing me? [00:07:50] Speaker C: He's been on. He's. I think he's got the record. He's got the. The record for the longest show he. He runs. He's founded the Bright Festival of Photography and runs it with. With another guy. And they have a bit of a rivalry. So we had Matt Crummonds on and I think he had a three hour, 45 minute episode. And so Nick, come on. And he just stayed on until like 3 hours 46 and was like, all right, I'll take it. Okay. Every. I know there's too many of you in here to say hi, but thanks for joining us. If you've got questions for Nick, throw them in the chat and we'll pull them up if they're good. If they're not, we'll just not pull them up. Okay. [00:08:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:26] Speaker A: Been warm. [00:08:26] Speaker B: All right. [00:08:29] Speaker C: Where do we want to start? So we now know that ISO is ISO. [00:08:36] Speaker A: That's right. [00:08:36] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, isos. [00:08:38] Speaker A: That's right. [00:08:39] Speaker B: It's equal. See, I've watched it so many times. It's ingrained. [00:08:42] Speaker C: I can. [00:08:42] Speaker A: I know I could do the whole video now if you want. [00:08:46] Speaker C: Just reenact it. Do you have the same vest? [00:08:49] Speaker A: Yeah, well, you know, God, no. [00:08:51] Speaker C: I think it's some. [00:08:53] Speaker A: Some lucky fella picked that up at Goodwill, I'm sure. But yeah, that was. That was my. That was my angle early on in YouTube was just lecturing people on how to properly pronounce things. So, yeah, it's a good thing I started so long ago because I don't think that would get me the kind of traction today that it. It might have back then. [00:09:12] Speaker C: Well, it's. It's interesting you say that because I was having a look at some of those early videos and your second video was kind of a come and shoot with me thing. I think. If I remember. [00:09:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Correctly, I think that was the Alabama Hills one where I'm. I go out and sleep in my. My truck and stuff like that. Exactly. [00:09:29] Speaker C: And what's really interesting, and I don't know whether it was reflective of that at the time, but views wise, you can see that those videos that style did well, has done better than the other videos that are more sort of like talk to the camera. Informative. [00:09:45] Speaker A: Oh yeah, about. [00:09:47] Speaker C: And did you see that early on? Did that direct what you decided to sort of pursue with the YouTube world? [00:09:52] Speaker A: Yeah, and it's still very much the case. So, I mean, the, the on location videos, that's why I called them for a long time. They're still kind of called that. But the on location videos are the only reason anyone ever found me because that was the, the stuff that, that people liked watching. I, I've come to understand that a lot better after all these years. Kind of early on I was like, who cares? Like, these places are not that exotic to me because I'm always just driving somewhere to do it. Like I'm, you know, like I'm not going to Fiji and doing an on location video. Like I'm going to a place that most people have to drive past to get to Las Vegas and they never stop or anything like that. So, yeah, it didn't really strike me as like, I don't know what the big deal is with these in particular, but maybe people just like seeing me use a camera. Maybe that's what it's about. But I, I'm realizing now, having done just a tiny bit more travel since then, that these are very unique places that some people in the world never get to see anything like that. So I think it's the visuals of the desert and the California desert and all that kind of stuff that really, you know, speak to people. And me out there taking pictures is almost just like an excuse to show them the, those beautiful places. So I'm kind of hoping to do more of that next year. I haven't really been out to the desert and done that in a little while. So I like to go back out and do it. People, people love those videos. So I know some people only watch me for those videos. [00:11:23] Speaker C: So I mean, there is, there's. I don't know what it is. They're relaxing. It has that really like you say that American aesthetic, that part of the world, it's iconic. We've seen it in movies. We, you know, it really does have that. [00:11:41] Speaker C: Feel and texture through all of the videos and it's, it's enjoyable for us to watch. [00:11:45] Speaker B: There's a nostalgia there that we have no place having because we've seen it so much in American media that we see here especially our deserts are nothing like that. I mean, we have vast and quite diverse deserts, but then they're not, they're not the same. Obviously different environmental reasons and you know, we've been fed that for so Long on. On American television in here in Australia, that we feel like we know the place, you know, but then when we see someone capture it and master it and do so in such a unique way for, you know, with, you know, large format or medium format at really stretched ratios, frame, you know, frame ratios, it's very captivating. But I think more than that, and this is not to denigrate your. Your photography skills, but also your delivery and how you. You're very down to earth. You're very relaxed. You've got that California chill going. People are coming up. Child. What's one last night where you were talking about getting back into. Used to be Denny. No, used to be Taco Bell. Previously Taco Bell. Sorry. [00:12:48] Speaker A: And previously Denny's and all that kind of stuff. [00:12:50] Speaker B: And. And this guy cycled up to you. He wasn't in shot. And you talked about how your camera stopped working for a bit and. And then he came back with a beer for you. And, you know, there was just that very casual. And that. That also resonates with us here in Australia because we've got a very relaxed culture. [00:13:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:05] Speaker B: When it comes to that, sort of like, you know, mates and. And, you know, everyone's a mate in Australia until they do you wrong and then he's old mate. As soon as someone in Australia does you wrong, then they become old mate. [00:13:16] Speaker A: Oh, so that's the anti. Mate. [00:13:19] Speaker C: There's this. You can even. Mate can be mate. Can be. Make him be gay mate. Or make him be nice. [00:13:26] Speaker A: Pretty aggressive. [00:13:27] Speaker C: Like be a little hostile. Yeah. [00:13:30] Speaker A: Like bro here. Like. Yeah, yeah, bro. Or like, what's up, bro. [00:13:34] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's all the delivery. There's another word. I probably shouldn't say it this early on the podcast because it'll get us squished a bit on YouTube, but there's another word we use a lot here in Australia that works in both ways. [00:13:46] Speaker B: Starts with a sea. [00:13:48] Speaker C: It does. [00:13:48] Speaker A: Okay. [00:13:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:51] Speaker B: Very common vernacular. [00:13:55] Speaker B: First word they teach in primary school. [00:13:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Outside the U.S. you guys have really embraced that term. It's a shame we're missing out, you guys. We don't get to throw it around like you do in there. In England. [00:14:07] Speaker C: More offensive in the US Than it is. [00:14:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Like. [00:14:10] Speaker C: Yeah. You'd have to be holding like a. A bat or something and say it for it to be aggressive over here. Whereas over there, it's like if anyone. [00:14:18] Speaker A: Accidentally says it, it's like, I like that. Yeah. [00:14:21] Speaker C: Anyway, it's different. It's a different world. [00:14:24] Speaker B: Let's talk. Let's talk about YouTube for a little bit. As I was saying, you've got this very chill, down to earth approach and comparing like say that first video to this one. In that first video, you know, you were very, very upright, static, immaculately groomed. [00:14:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:42] Speaker B: And now the videos have taken on a. Well, over time the videos obviously take on a new form as you become more relaxed. You know, we've experienced the same thing here with doing videos and podcasts and like that Initially you just petrified and you just want to get the right message out and not look like an idiot. But your style has developed. What, what was it that got you into YouTube at such a, such an early stage in the platform's existence? [00:15:05] Speaker A: Well, I mean, it was so early that it wasn't really like a viable career path or anything. So I wasn't thinking it in those terms. I wasn't thinking about getting sponsorships and you know, all this kind of stuff. Like there wasn't any of that. I was offering online courses back then. I still do, but I had online courses really only about digital photography at the time. [00:15:26] Speaker B: Yep. [00:15:26] Speaker A: So I was teaching full time. So I had a classroom that I was renting. I had it for nine years and I would do one on one private lessons with people. And then I also had the online courses and YouTube looked like it would be a good way for me to. [00:15:43] Speaker A: Demonstrate my teaching so that people would potentially sign up for a course. And. [00:15:50] Speaker A: That was kind of the original, original impetus. And then the on location stuff really had nothing to do with that. The on location stuff I, I decided to do because there's a YouTuber, it's been on, on there even longer than me. His name's Ben Horn. He does large format film photography and he did those on location videos way before anybody. [00:16:11] Speaker A: And is obviously very good at them. And I saw those videos and it's like, oh, that seems kind of cool. Like when I go camping, there's a lot of downtime, nothing to do. So maybe I'll film a video while I'm out there. But it was a weird dilemma in the beginning because I actually felt like those videos didn't fit in with what I was trying to do on YouTube. So I almost didn't do it or, or didn't, you know, pursuit, continue pursuing that because I'm like, oh, this is something people aren't going to care about, but the people are really going to care about what's a full frame digital camera. Because that's, that's the wave of the future is, you know, all this digital photography stuff. So I was doing like kind of instructional digital photography stuff and then occasionally doing a film centric on location video. There's a little more for me and I, I kind of enjoyed making it but I thought it wouldn't lead to anything. And then of course ironically that's what grew my channel and then it became much more film film centric. But you can see that in my videos. A lot of the earlier ones are much more digital and kind of not really tips but like explaining little things about digital cameras which I don't really do anymore. [00:17:22] Speaker C: Yeah, I saw there was a, like a five part camera series and. And yeah, various things sort of smattered in those early days which was interesting because. Yeah. That you really don't see much digital at the moment other than. I sent this sentence to Greg because I hadn't seen this video of yours of you, your trip to Paris with an X Pro 2. [00:17:43] Speaker A: Oh yeah. [00:17:44] Speaker C: Which is hideously frustrating for me because Greg is a Fujifilm shooter and is constantly, he's constantly reaching out to guests that only shoot Fujifilm just to try and really like rub it in my face. And when I saw that I was like, of course. [00:18:01] Speaker C: An X Pro 2. Greg's gonna love this. [00:18:04] Speaker A: Well, if it makes you feel better, the camera just collects dust. It's a beautiful camera. I just never use digital for anything that I'm choosing to shoot on my own so it just ends up. Ends up sitting there. [00:18:14] Speaker B: But. [00:18:15] Speaker A: But yeah, it's, it's a great camera. I find the camera a little frustrating personally sometimes too. But yeah, Fuji guys are hardcore. [00:18:27] Speaker B: I've even got shoes. Fujifilm shoes. [00:18:29] Speaker C: He's actually got Fujifilm. What are they? [00:18:31] Speaker B: Converse. Yeah, I got some Chucks. Custom made Chucks. One of one. [00:18:35] Speaker A: Oh man. [00:18:36] Speaker B: With one of my. Because I used to do. I still do product reviews for photography gear and I got invited by Fujifilm Australia to go and custom design a pair of cons just for me. So I sent them a photo I shot of the new XC5, which is this camera. So I'm just getting a Fujifilm plug in and. [00:18:58] Speaker B: They printed the photo onto the, onto the tongue of the shoe. So I've got this unique concept. [00:19:03] Speaker A: So you got them in like a Lucite case in your. Yeah, yeah. [00:19:06] Speaker B: With lights and lasers and the whole thing. [00:19:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:09] Speaker B: 247 security. [00:19:10] Speaker A: Yeah, as it should be. [00:19:11] Speaker B: Yeah, as it should be indeed. [00:19:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:12] Speaker C: They're like bright white so he can't wear them out. They'll immediately. Well, I'll immediately step on them because that's what you do when someone has fresh shoes. [00:19:20] Speaker A: They're your dress shoes. [00:19:23] Speaker B: Yeah, no, but I wear my best tracksuit pants, which is. What do you call them? Track pants. Track pants. What do you call them in America? [00:19:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I think track pants. Yeah. You're talking about the ones with like, the two stripes up the side and. [00:19:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:19:36] Speaker C: Running. [00:19:36] Speaker A: Best worn with the short shirt undone really low and a big gold chain and a hairy chest. [00:19:41] Speaker C: Yeah, I was going to say a little bit of chest hair, which I also don't have. [00:19:48] Speaker B: How did we get there? [00:19:49] Speaker C: So. [00:19:51] Speaker C: There'S so many places I want to go, but I just want to. This is on my mind. So I want to ask how much has YouTube affected or impacted your photography in terms of the direction that you've headed? Creativity, inspiration, like, how much do. Does the thought of making a video about something you're going to shoot change the way that you've actually. [00:20:16] Speaker C: Approach photography? [00:20:18] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a really good question. It's. It definitely affects it, and I really try to not let it. Because when you're like, for example, the. As we were talking about, like, everyone wants to see me go out to the Mojave Desert to take pictures. That's really. The videos that do well. That's what people want to see in the videos. I don't really have an itch to photograph any of that stuff right now, so I. I want to photograph stuff that's within walking distance to my. Of my house, basically. I don't know if it's a. A phase or a new step in my photography or something, but I kind of rather photograph buildings that are in populated areas. [00:20:59] Speaker A: So then I kind of have that dilemma where I'm like, well, I can make a video of me photographing the. The previously Denny's down the street. And I really want to make that. I think that's cool, and I really like that picture and everything, but I know that's not as much what people want to see. So sometimes I. I have to do kind of a compromise where I'm like, okay, we'll. We'll go out to the desert to take pictures, mainly for the video, but let's see if we can find something worth shooting, you know? But when I want to do pictures locally, should I make a video or shouldn't I? Because I know it's not going to get the same traction as the desert thing. So it's kind of a weird thing to. To try and balance because I ultimately want to be a photographer, not a YouTuber. When you get right down to it. But no one gives a crap about the photos if I don't make a YouTube video about it. So it ends up being this kind of weird thing where I, I have to make a YouTube video about it if I want the picture to carry any weight with people. [00:21:58] Speaker B: So it's an interesting observation, isn't it? [00:22:01] Speaker A: Yeah, it's frustrating but I mean, I've made peace with it. It's, it's better than the alternative which you, which is you have no avenue to make your photos carry weight with anybody. You know, like I, I, I sell prints now. I didn't before YouTube. I wouldn't if I had it, if I didn't have a YouTube and I really love making prints. So I mean it's like if, if that's the end I want to reach, then this is the means to that end. It, it has to be done. So it can be a little frustrating because you feel like you're maybe having to do things you don't want to do sometimes, but it's like, oh, you don't want to go out to the desert and take pictures, poor thing. So it's like I, I, I, I try to keep myself on the, the positive end of that where it's like, yeah, but you're super lucky that anyone gives a crap about your photos no matter how they're seeing them. And YouTube has been a huge blessing I guess you could say in that, that respect. So yeah, yeah, I think it, it. [00:23:01] Speaker C: Is difficult because like you say these days there's so much, there's so much work out there and to get people to care about your images, even if they are great images, can be difficult and, and to get someone to buy a print. Prints are expensive. [00:23:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:18] Speaker C: Takes a lot of care to make them. Then you've got to hang them. Like it's, it's, it's a decent undertaking for someone to part with their money to purchase a print off a photographer. Yeah. And I don't think it's easy to do. I think it's something that people have success with but they put a lot of work in to make it happen. The people we've had on the podcast that sell prints, most of them have to be successful, have had to open a physical gallery and that's a whole nother. [00:23:47] Speaker B: Yeah, like, yeah, that's another difficulties. Full time business venture on its own. [00:23:52] Speaker C: Yeah. And everyone, all of them have said how difficult that is in running that business. [00:23:57] Speaker A: Very much. But yeah. [00:23:59] Speaker C: So I think. [00:24:02] Speaker C: Yeah, it is, it's difficult because on one hand, it would be great if you could just make images and people would just want to buy them and not have to have a video attached to it or whatever. But also, yeah, there's so much more meaning to. For that person because they know what was involved in creating that print. [00:24:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:21] Speaker C: In that image. [00:24:23] Speaker A: And there's kind of two ways to look at it, which is like, ultimately people are. Are supporting me, not my photos, ultimately, when you get right down to it, because they're. They're. They're buying. I don't sell prints to anybody who isn't a YouTube fan. Those are my only customers. So they're buying it maybe not even because it's their favorite photo, but because they. They know me. They. They feel like we're friends. There's a connection there. There's a community that maybe I don't get to have the luxury of that with them, but they feel that with me. So they're ultimately supporting me because they like me. And the two ways to look at that is you could be like, well, yeah, but I want it to be about the photos. Like, I want it to be about the work. And it's like, well, yeah, but don't you want people to support you, too? So it's kind of like maybe it's okay if it's not like their favorite photo, but they like me enough to actually hang something of mine on the wall. [00:25:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Is it like when. When, you know, like, gaming. You might. We're a big gaming household here, and my kids watch a lot of gaming. YouTube, and they. They're constantly hassling. Well, my youngest is constantly hassling me to buy merch. It'll be like some cheap, shitty soft toy or a beard, you know, a cheap desk mat with printing on it, a mouse mat. Mouse pad. But for you, it's actually prints. That's your merch. [00:25:44] Speaker A: Yeah. And I would like it to be books. [00:25:49] Speaker A: So I really, really, really want to do a book. And I know a lot of people do books, and I think that's maybe the best way to consume photography. Truthfully, wall art is great, and I love the satisfaction of seeing a big old print on the wall, but a book is way more accessible to people, and you can. You can tell kind of a more thorough story by combining photos and all that kind of stuff. [00:26:14] Speaker C: But. [00:26:15] Speaker A: But I haven't done a book yet, and a lot of people have asked about it because. [00:26:20] Speaker A: I just don't feel like I have enough for a book yet. And I. I see photography books sometimes where I flip Third and it's like, dude, this is like, this is half baked. You should have kept going a little more and then, and then do a book. Like, I feel like people sometimes do books too, too soon and they don't really have a really well developed. [00:26:46] Speaker A: Portfolio yet or idea yet for that book. And you know, no shade on them. I mean, if they want to invest the money on that and it's enjoyable to them, then that's a good reason to do it. But I personally would like to one day put a book out where it's like. [00:27:05] Speaker A: This was very thorough. Like years of taking pictures on a very defined topic. Like the, the whole previously Taco Bell thing. My dream is to have a very well done book of the pictures from that at some point. But I take so few photos. It's just, it's going to be years before I have enough to where I feel like that's worthy of a book. Because like you're saying with the artwork, I feel like a, a good photo book. You know, if you're asking someone to buy this big beautiful book and keep it on their coffee table, like keep it out in your life every day, like, you better earn that. You better make it a damn good book that you've dedicated tons of time to to have that kind of honor. I guess you could say, as weird as it sounds of having your work on someone's table, you better bring something worth putting on the table. So I want to make sure whatever books I end up putting out down the road, they're really well done and I've put a lot of time into it and there's no looking at it and being like, ah, you could have done this at blurb, you know, and made like a. It would have been the same thing, you know, like, I want it to be. Yeah, be really good. [00:28:21] Speaker C: So, yeah, I, I think your work, particularly. [00:28:26] Speaker C: Even just the fact that you use the, the 6 by 17 so much, it's like it would need to be a large book to really do it justice, which would then mean obviously the price would have to be high. It wouldn't translate well to a smaller book, I wouldn't imagine. So, yeah, I can see why you would. Like, all right. If people are going to invest whatever this is going to need to cost, it needs to be perfect. But it's probably never, never done, never perfect. [00:28:53] Speaker A: But that's what I try and I try and remind myself of that too. Like there's never going to be like a, okay, let's do it. But I do feel like I Need a little more than I have right now. It's one of my biggest challenges as a photographer is I just don't take that many photos. And it's weird to say as a working photographer, but that's often what happens when you make a profession out of your passion is you end up. All that energy gets sucked up into the client stuff and then, you know, you get a day off. It's like, I don't want to go out and take pictures. I want to sit around and watch Netflix, you know? Yeah. [00:29:31] Speaker C: So I feel that, yeah, we talk, we talk about that a bit. I did a, a decade as a wedding photographer and, and in the busiest years of that, particularly in the summer season, it was just the last thing that I wanted to do was even pick up a camera, you know, like. [00:29:49] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a real shame. I see that with everybody. I mean, every photographer I know that's like a consistently working photographer. They don't really have any personal work anymore. They just don't pursue anything if they're busy. Some of them don't even really end up shooting their own client work much anymore. They, they, you know, they delegate that to a secondary shooter and then it's like you're barely a photographer. I know you're a business person, but you've kind of turned your passion into something that's so business that it, it kind of took the passion out of it. But that's where, that's where the YouTube thing is very, I'm very lucky with that because that does keep the passion side of it going for me because I have a reason to pursue the passion stuff that not only. [00:30:43] Speaker A: Feels responsible financially, like I'm putting work into something that is going to pay the bills. So I, I don't need to feel guilty about going out on a Friday night to take pictures just for me. You know, I can do something that does have a little bit of a return on investment that makes it a little easier for me to get motivated to do it. But also the community around the film photography community is so. [00:31:08] Speaker A: It's just awesome. I, I don't know the right words for it other than they're, they're very enthusiastic about film photography. They're very supportive. You know, I mean, YouTube is just a cesspool of people tearing other people down, but I don't see that nearly as much on the film photography community. And I think it's because it's generally people who, people who are into a slower process, so they tend to be a little more chill people. But Also, there's not this, like, race to who's got the better gear and who's got the more megapixels and all this kind of stuff. So it doesn't really have those undertones of competition. But just being a part of the analog photography community through YouTube really helps keep the passion on my personal projects, which is. I'm very lucky for that. [00:31:58] Speaker B: It's an interesting point you raise, Nick, because, you know, what we do here on the podcast is very much a work of passion for Justin and I and Jim, who's often joined, joins us. But he's busy at the moment. No, he's recovering. [00:32:09] Speaker A: That's right, he's recovering. [00:32:10] Speaker B: Surgery. But. And we don't find any of that undertone of nastiness in our community because we are very community focused. You know, I mean, Justin jokes about we only do live stuff because he's a lazy editor, video editor. But the reality is, is that we do this for the. That is true, but he's lazy at most. [00:32:33] Speaker B: But, you know, we do it. We go live because we've got a community that we want to support. We want to hear from people in the chat. [00:32:38] Speaker C: Chat. [00:32:38] Speaker B: We want to. We want to create relationships with them, not for any financial gain, but because we generally love what we do. We love our craft. We love. And we bring passion to it. And so we create a safe space for our community. And there is no undertone of that. You know, that kind of typical tearing people down. Because here on the show, we share people's images. Every Monday night, we have a segment where people can email in their favorite images from the week and we'll bring them up and talk about them. And there is nothing but love and support from the community. [00:33:09] Speaker A: Yeah, that. That to me is the utopian idea of the Internet, that ultimately it's not turning out to be that at all. Like, that was kind of the. The idea with the Internet is like, you'll be able to connect with people in Australia, on the other side of the world who share your passion. And it's like, man, to make it work that way, you have to be so careful about how you use it because if you just kind of let it be a free for all, it just turns into a complete. A complete show real quick. But the. Yeah, the. These kind of smaller communities where it's people who are dedicated, they come back to you every time and they know you're gonna, you know, be there to talk about the same stuff you're both passionate about. I think that's. That's Kind of the key to it, and that's what I've tried to be on. On YouTube, is just, you know, maybe I'm. I'm not the most prolific. I don't put out a lot of videos every year. But, you know, when. When I put something out, I'm hoping people look at it and they're like, okay, I know I'm gonna feel a certain way watching his stuff, and that makes me feel good. And it's not gonna pull in a bunch of people that are like, actually, the megapixels on that are, you know, whatever. [00:34:23] Speaker B: And like, ISO actually means this. [00:34:27] Speaker C: It's pronounced ISO, not ISO. [00:34:30] Speaker A: Yeah, you see, I want to be the one on the other side of the camera saying, oh, actually ISO is pronounced. [00:34:36] Speaker A: I want to monopolize that. That's what I'm saying. [00:34:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:41] Speaker B: But if it doesn't come natural, it's just, you know, oh, it comes natural for me. [00:34:46] Speaker C: Oh, I need to. I gotta write that down. I just of a question. I want to check in quickly with the chat because there's a couple of questions, but the. The chat. Clippy, Jesus definitely wants a book. Christine Wilson wants a book. So, yeah, that's. That'll be amazing when it happens, but obviously, yeah, you certainly cannot rush it. I bought a book from one of our guests. How long do you reckon. [00:35:08] Speaker C: What did Michael say this one took? Like, how it was? [00:35:11] Speaker B: 15 years. [00:35:12] Speaker C: 15 years? Yeah. Of what? [00:35:13] Speaker A: He trapped. That, to me, is. Is the right amount of time for a book. I'm not saying it should always. Well, geez. [00:35:22] Speaker A: I'm not saying it should always be that long, but, like, that's someone who made sure they fully explored the. The concept before they. They put it on paper because it's permanent on paper. So, like, that's kind of where I'm coming at. But anyway, I didn't mean to do the show. No, no, no, no. [00:35:42] Speaker C: Who else was I going to check on here? There was a question. Yeah. Brendan Waits from down south says. Oh, man, this guy's brilliant. We'll watch. Back after work. G', day, Nick. [00:35:52] Speaker C: Couple of questions. This one's probably more in depth. Clippy Jesus. Wanted to know any plans on doing another show similar to the one you did at Casa Romantica? [00:36:00] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. So just to fill everybody. And that was a little gallery showing that I did locally here in Orange County. It was a Photos from deserts of the American Southwest. So I call it American Desert. And it was a bunch of artwork I saw. [00:36:16] Speaker C: Yeah, I saw the video on that. In two rooms. Yeah. Yeah, that looked beautiful. How did that go? [00:36:22] Speaker A: Oh, it was. It was great. I mean, it, like, the. The spiritual enrichment was. Was through the freaking roof. It. It. I love making framed pieces. So I got an excuse to do that. A bunch of people came out for the artist reception, which was I was not expecting, and it was really cool. Line out the door, through the gallery. The gallery said they never seen that before and all that kind of stuff. I'm not saying that to. To brag, but that was amazing to me. And it kind of put the. [00:36:58] Speaker A: The popularity of my YouTube channel in real terms. Because, you know, you. You look at these numbers, you look at the stats, you look at all this, it's really. They don't mean much. Like, you know, 130, 000 subs like, I. I don't know what that means, man. Or are half those people dead or half of them robots? I don't know. Like, I don't know if they really. But. But even more than that, I don't know how people are. [00:37:25] Speaker A: How much the videos mean to them. I mean, it could just be casual viewing that's just kind of killing time while they're at work, and it's not that important to them. But when someone actually makes the effort to drive out to a location, wait in line so that they can see my work in person, and then meet me, then I fully understand that this is something important to them. And so that makes me just feel like it's. It's all worth it. So that show was great that I ran into the same problem that I run, run into. Anytime I've put work on display, which is at the end of it, you got a bunch of framed artwork you got to figure out what to do with. And sitting in the storage unit. And like. [00:38:08] Speaker C: Oh, really? [00:38:09] Speaker A: Yeah, it's sitting in the storage unit. I got nowhere to hang it. I don't have enough walls or anything. So, I mean, I sold. I sold a few pieces, but the vast majority of it is sitting in a. In a storage unit. [00:38:20] Speaker C: So is it too hard to ship? As in. Because I'm sure people would buy it, but is it too hard to ship? So it's. It's only people locally that could purchase it, or is that the issue? [00:38:30] Speaker A: Yeah, part of the issue is I framed everything with glass, which you can ship plexi a lot easier. I just hate how plexi looks. So I wanted to do glass and, you know, or if I did some sort of presentation method that was glass free, which I do sometimes. If you do a C type print, you can mount it, laminate it, and then it doesn't need glass. But you can only do that on C type prints. And the majority of prints in that were pigment prints, so I ended up having to frame them behind glass. [00:39:02] Speaker C: But I'm. [00:39:06] Speaker C: I know a little bit about printing, but not a lot. I recently bought a Pro 1100. [00:39:12] Speaker A: Good choice. [00:39:13] Speaker B: There's a video on that. [00:39:16] Speaker B: Video. [00:39:16] Speaker A: Somebody. [00:39:18] Speaker C: I did. I. I did watch that before I bought it. I shoot Canon. I got a good relationship with Canon here in Australia. So I had an Epson 3880 before that years ago, and it gave me nothing but trouble, but did also produce great prints. And then this time around, decided to go with Canon. Anyway, long story short, before I get into all of that later in the show, because I've had a lot of problems with the color. [00:39:42] Speaker C: What is a C type print? I don't understand. I don't know if it's called something different here or if I haven't come across it, but what's a C type print and how is that different to pigment? [00:39:51] Speaker B: Where does the term originate from? Is it Greek? [00:39:55] Speaker A: It's pronounced K type. No, I'm kidding. So C type goes by a few different names. It's a chromogenic print is where the C comes from. So chromogenic prints, they called C prints or C type prints. They also call them RA4 prints, I believe, which is the chemistry used to make them. I think it's RA4. But anyway, so like your Canon printer and my Canon printer, which I have the same one, those make. Those are pigment prints, which are actually pretty fascinating when you start looking into the technology for it. So they're called pigment prints because the actual color on the paper is physical pigment. So it's actual. It's not dyes, it's not ink, like you might think about it. It's tiny, tiny, tiny little particles of color suspended in a liquid. They get put onto the paper and then the liquid dries and leaves the pigments, which is why pigment prints essentially last forever. Because. [00:41:02] Speaker A: There'S no liquid to change on the print over time afterwards, it's all gone. It's just pigments. It's physically things on the paper. So that uses tiny droplets of ink on the paper to create the illusion of all the colors. Now, I say illusion because there's really only four colors on the printer. On the Pro One 1100, there's a couple more. They have a blue and a red, but there's really four colors that make up pigment prints. Cyan, magenta, yellow and black. So the way it creates the illusion of every color in the rainbow, every color in your super colorful photo is it's just overlaying the droplets in the right amount. They don't blend together. It's the droplets. This is called dithering. And you can actually break out a magnifying glass on a pigment print, even from like a canon. And you'll see the individual droplets, which is kind of crazy. Yeah, yeah. So if you get a, like, if you have a loop around from an old light table or something like that, you'll see the droplets. And if you look at a lower end printer and do the same thing, the droplets are slightly bigger and more spread out, and that's what makes it a lower quality printer. So it's a bunch of tiny droplets. The only reason it looks like continuous color to us is because our eyes blend it together into a single tone. When you overlay yellow and cyan, you know, you get green, I think in that sense. But anyway, so that's pigment prints. Now chromogenic prints, C prints are completely different. They don't use ink at all. They use light to create the image. And it's a lot like an inkjet printer in that there's a head that goes back and forth, putting the image down on paper, but instead of shooting out droplets of ink, it's shooting out LED light. [00:42:57] Speaker A: And so it'll adjust the LEDs to get exactly the color you want on that pinpoint of paper, and then it will expose the paper to this LED light. So the paper of course, has to be photosensitive. So it's like darkroom. [00:43:12] Speaker C: Okay, so it's. So it's more like a darkroom print. [00:43:14] Speaker A: Exactly. So then at the end of it, it goes through chemicals, so it goes through developer and stop bath and all that kind of stuff. And what comes out is an actual photographic print that was made with light on a photosensitive paper. [00:43:28] Speaker A: So it's a much more complex process because you obviously need the chemistry. There's silver halides that get washed off that you have to dispose of. So at high end labs, they have to do that environmentally, you know, an environmental way that, you know, they're reusing it or something like that. The machines are generally a lot bigger. The paper has to be kept in complete darkness until it's time to expose it. So and they don't last nearly as long, so they, they fade. And that's because, you know, they're made with light. So even when they're done being Developed as they're exposed to light throughout the rest of its life, it continues to change slightly. Now, of course, they try and inhibit that in the chemistry and in the paper and all this kind of stuff. And they'll say, like, this paper will resist 80 years before noticeable fading in typical home display. From what I understand, the manufacturers grossly overestimate those. So, like a print from Fuji, let's say they make these papers, but let's say they have it rated for 80 years. In typical home display, it'll probably fade in 30, or it'll shift color in 30. Whether it's enough to notice, who knows. But I have a bunch of C prints that are hanging in my dad's office from way back when, when I was kind of a budding photographer. And they're under fluorescent lighting of a typical office. Some of them are very noticeably faded. Like, the colors have shifted completely. And they're only like. [00:45:05] Speaker A: 15 years old, 18 years old, something like that. But a lot of them look fine. But the. All this is to get to the. The reason I would do C type prints sometimes, because I'm probably making it sound like there's very few benefits to it. I kind of like the idea of it being made with light. I think that's kind of cool sometimes. But also. [00:45:27] Speaker A: Because it's not ink resting on the top of paper, you can do more with the surface. So, like, you can mount it to Plexiglas face first, you know, so it's behind plexiglass, and you're looking at it, you know, you've seen those before, I'm sure. Like, they usually float. Mount it away. [00:45:47] Speaker C: We call them acrylic. Acrylic. [00:45:49] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. [00:45:50] Speaker C: Is that is the common term for them? And they're very common. I wouldn't have thought they would. So can you not do that with inkjet? It would. [00:45:56] Speaker A: You can and I have, but they failed. So. Because if you think about it, you're adhering to the ink absorption layer on the paper, which, depending on how much ink is in that ink absorption layer, that could change how the adhesive goes to it. So, like, I had a big one where I intended to do a C print for this other gallery showing I was doing, and I was face mount, plexing it. So face mount acrylic. And their machine broke. They couldn't give me a C type. So they're like, we made you an inkjet. It's glossy. We'll mount it. That thing was in the window of the gallery for like a month. And it failed. So like the, it started to separate and got all the, the pulling the. [00:46:40] Speaker B: Ink off the, off the paper. [00:46:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Or maybe the ink absorption layer, I'm not quite sure. But I think the fact that it's ink soaked into something is just changing how it can adhere to the, the acrylic. But the C prints, they're like a traditional darkroom print in that all of the ink. Excuse me, all the, the image layers, the color layers, they're under a protective top layer. So because you, you create the image with light, you can just have a clear top layer and make the image through that. You don't need to, you know, make the image at the very top of the paper. So you have these layers of, you have the paper base and then you have a layer that's blue responsive, a layer that's red responsive, a layer that's green responsive. Then just like film, it's the same as film. Then those different layers react to the color of the led, so on and so on, and then it creates the image. But that's all happening under this top protective layer. What's really cool about that is that means C prints, you can actually display with nothing in front of them. So you don't need glass, you don't need plexiglass, you don't need anything. And they're just as protected against fading and ozone and contaminants like that as if it was behind glass. It's not as protected against scratching and fingerprints, of course, but yeah, you know, it doesn't need protection. Pigment prints need protection to meet the archival standards, they say. So, like, because things like ozone in the air will deteriorate pigment prints, so those have to be protected. So all of this is my typical Nick Carver, insanely long winded way to say sea prints I like sometimes because I can frame them with no glass, no plexiglass, no nothing. They just have a laminate over the top. And it's almost like a painting in that sense where you'll see like a canvas painting and there's nothing in front of it. It's like that, but it's not canvas. It's tack sharp, it's a photo, it's all that stuff. [00:48:46] Speaker B: So I think I just want to jump in with one comment and there's the folks in the chat echoing this. I think you just demonstrated for us yet again just how comfortable you are talking about your craft and the very specific details. But more importantly, the way in which you just explained to us without mansplaining, it's a Very popular term here in Australia, mansplaining. Justin does it all the time. [00:49:10] Speaker C: Professional. [00:49:10] Speaker B: But, you know, and you. You. You basically just ran a, you know, thankfully free educational session for us on that topic. And I think that's what I found with your videos, too. And the last video I watched late last night was your. The comparison between the two printers, the 1000 and the 1100. And it was just captivating for me because I didn't know a lot of what you spoke of and just the way in which you provided comparison between the two products, not only in terms of its tech specs, but also in terms of its output. You traveled to the. To the desert just to do those four pano shots. And I think at one point you got it up to five, didn't you? And one, one, One. One particular subject and then came back and printed them and analyzed all of that and showcased for everyone what's involved. And I think that's really compelling. And I think, you know, we just. We just involved in an example of that. And I think there's a natural skill there for you as an educator that shines through. And like I said, the chat are definitely echoing that so well. [00:50:09] Speaker A: Thank you. I really appreciate that. I love teaching. It's. It's a lot of. A lot of fun. And the. The printing stuff happens to be on my mind right now because I'm actually making an online course about printing. So I've actually been researching all that stuff a lot lately, and there's so much interesting stuff that no one thinks about or learns when it comes to printing. A photo of how this technology works is probably pretty wild. And even the color management stuff, like all. All that stuff that's been figured out for us so that we can just get our photo to look reasonably good on paper. Like, the fact that what we get on paper looks anything like we see on the screen is a miracle. But it's all this technology and all these organizations like the CIE and the ISO isn't even involved with that, but all these organizations that have set standards on things and kind of gotten everyone on the same page. It's pretty interesting stuff. [00:51:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Do you think that's a. That's a dying art, that that ability to actually understand how a machine works, to make. To make, you know, make a print or to take a photo or, you know. Yeah, I mean, I guess we fall back on, you know, the whole app mentality of just download an app and press a button and it will print. I don't need to know about color Science or paper quality or, you know, the machine will do it for me. [00:51:26] Speaker A: Yeah, I think you're right because I mean, everything is so automated now and everything is, has gotten so, so much easier. So a lot of this stuff, you don't, you don't need to know all that and you can still get decent quality stuff. But what I've definitely noticed is like as you, it's this constant like one upmanship where like you get a little bit better, so you start to see the, the blemishes and you start to see, could be, it could be a little better. So then you got to learn a little more. And then because you learn a little more, you want to implement that stuff. So then you start like bringing up the quality, but then you start to see something else. And it's just like you get so deep into it and you get so good at noticing things that are off that you kind of have to become an expert on it. But for the type of people, and I actually legitimately envy these people because I think it's actually like almost a mental illness with me. But the people that can just be happy that it looks this way and they don't need to like go down chasing that rabbit hole of learning every last little corner of it because they want to get a 2% better print. Like, that's kind of a relief, I would imagine, because I, I certainly don't have that. Like, I, I assisted for a guy once, he did automotive photography big in the 80s and 90s. So like this guy's work is so freaking cool. So he, he shot everything on large format reversal film. So completely unforgiving for exposure, color, everything. You have to get it perfect in camera. And he would shoot a large format camera in his studio. He'd bring in like a hot rod or like some of my favorite photos of his. It'd be like a Lamborghini Countach, you know, because he was taking pictures when that was a new car. And so like you'd have this Lamborghini Countach or whatever, and he would light it in his studio. He would bounce lights off the ceiling. He pioneered this whole look of the car floating on a black background, which we just do with Photoshop now. But he was doing that on a piece of reversal film. So he had to get the background and the lighting and everything dialed in perfectly so that on the piece of film, the car looked like it was floating on a black background, which was a massive undertaking. But he perfected it, did a good job. He did this for 40 years, 50 years, whatever. Kind of ended up retiring. And then I went and assisted him on a job. He had some hot rod come in, and I just went to kind of not even really assist, just to shadow him. But I came into his office one day and he had a piece of reversal film on the light table. And he's just like, look at that. And I went over. I'm like, yeah, it looks great, man. This great photo. He's like, what's wrong with it? I'm like, I don't know. It looks pretty good to me. He's like, it's green. [00:54:24] Speaker B: The. [00:54:24] Speaker A: The black hot rod's green. I'm like. [00:54:29] Speaker A: Maybe a little bit, like if you squint. But it. Like, he saw it. There was this color cast. It was a problem from the developing. So the, the lab developed it so that it resulted in a slightly green color cast. And it was driving him nuts because he'd been doing it for 40 years. So he sees like, oh, that needs plus two yellow to be perfect. And it's like, I remember that stuck with me because I'm like, I kind of hope I never reach that point. Like that. That's impressive. Don't get me wrong. And that's who you want shooting your multimillion dollar car. But my God, I can't imagine that life where you're going around and it's like, okay, that needs plus two red. That means minus 1% yellow. It's like, oh, that. That's a level. That's an attention to detail. That's even a bit much for me. But it's kind of unavoidable if you keep going down the path of learning more and more and more, and then eventually just every little color cast. Strategy nuts. [00:55:28] Speaker C: But I was gonna say, I wonder if he's. If he's watched any of your videos and gone, jeez, this guy's. Look at him. He's obsessing over this. [00:55:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm the insane one in his eyes. [00:55:44] Speaker A: Man. [00:55:45] Speaker C: It's fine. Like, it's just a Taco Bell. [00:55:47] Speaker A: Call it ISO. Who cares? [00:55:49] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. [00:55:53] Speaker C: All right. I am keeping an eye on the chat guys. So if you have questions, throw them in there. We'll get to them eventually. I want to stay on printing for a little bit because it's self serving. That's what I'm interested in at the moment. [00:56:05] Speaker A: For me too, because that's what I'm researching. That's all fresh in my brain right now. [00:56:10] Speaker C: Rodney Nicholson says, back in the 80s, Kodak would tell us 100 years. So obviously that was a lie. I guess Rodney's actually, Rodney's been on the show. He's been a photographer for over five decades. So yeah, he's a, he's, he's seen it all. [00:56:26] Speaker C: Does David Skinner wants to know, does anyone know if my Epson P800 is a pigment printer? I would be positive it is. [00:56:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Just to clarify that inkjet prints are pigment prints. By and large, there are some dye based inkjet printers, but any photo printer you'd buy is a pigment printer because it uses pigments in the inks instead of dyes. It just sounds way better to say pigment print than an inkjet print. [00:56:53] Speaker C: So like, sounds more expensive. [00:56:55] Speaker A: Yeah. When I'm selling you a limited edition pigment print, you feel like you're buying something good. But if I said you're buying a limited edition inkjet print, they're like, oh, I have an inkjet printer. So it's, it's a way to sound like the print is a lot better than it actually is. [00:57:08] Speaker C: But I love that I'm writing that down. [00:57:13] Speaker C: Pigment print. [00:57:16] Speaker C: Multiple people saying, looking forward to your course on printing. I am too. I'm, I'm definitely going to be buying that. Assuming that it's, it's relevant to my Pro 1100. [00:57:27] Speaker A: Certainly will be. [00:57:28] Speaker C: Question. [00:57:30] Speaker C: You, you like matte paper because you hate reflections. I know this. [00:57:37] Speaker C: I don't like matte paper because of all the reasons that you said, which is it doesn't look saturated, it doesn't look bold and contrasty and stuff like that. [00:57:46] Speaker A: Yes. [00:57:47] Speaker C: Now, first question. Do I pronounce the paper that I love? [00:57:53] Speaker C: Burrita or Barider or does it not matter? [00:57:56] Speaker A: I believe it's bar. And the reason I'm fairly confident of that is I met with the Ilford guys in the paper division. They, they seem to pronounce it that way. Okay. Yeah. [00:58:07] Speaker B: Have you used. [00:58:08] Speaker C: I know you, you get paid the big bucks by Alford now, so you probably can't even talk about this brand, but have you ever. [00:58:15] Speaker A: I get paid the big paper they just send me. [00:58:18] Speaker A: Hey, which. [00:58:19] Speaker B: That's like a salary. That's like a salary on. [00:58:21] Speaker A: Hey man, it's getting paper. Paper ain't free. [00:58:24] Speaker C: Yeah, I ordered so I ordered yesterday and it's not in stock and I'm, I'm constantly having trouble getting it. But Canson Brighter, not the Prestige. I've got some of the Prestige, but their regular one, the Canson Brighter to whatever it is. Not the matte. It's, it's, it looks more glossy looking. [00:58:44] Speaker A: To See, if I had it. Have you used it? But a little bit glossier. Well, it's. [00:58:50] Speaker C: It's. [00:58:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:52] Speaker C: It's called Canson Barada too. They had it one. I use that for years while we're doing weddings. It was the only paper that had this balance between it looking kind of not glossy, glossy or even luster or whatever, but. But it still had the contrast and saturation that made my photos look the way that I thought they should look when they printed out. [00:59:14] Speaker A: Canson Bar too. [00:59:15] Speaker C: Yeah. And they have Berita Prestige, which is better, but it's more expensive. [00:59:19] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, yeah, sorry, I was just gonna say Barida really strikes that balance. Exactly what you're talking about of like, pictures got a lot more punch, but it's not that crazy. Wet, wet shiny. Yeah. [00:59:38] Speaker C: What do you know if Ilford have something along that, like, have you experimented with with their range of that style of paper? [00:59:45] Speaker A: A few of them, yeah. [00:59:46] Speaker C: Yeah. Is there any that you like? [00:59:48] Speaker A: Yeah, the pull up there. I got the little sample thing. These ones and markdown. Yeah, like, they're gold fiber rag is. Is probably right on par with that. I don't know if it's a barida. They. So Ilford's kind of. Kind of funny. I actually asked the guys about this because it was actually a little frustrating to me. Their product line is pretty confusing. [01:00:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:00:11] Speaker A: They like. The terminology they use is. There's a lot of overlap and it's confusing. It's really not crystal clear what. What you're buying. And I've kind of. I've made as much a stink about that as I'm willing to, but I don't know that they're going to change anything. But they were telling me a lot of it is based on the fact that in Japan they're very strict about what terminology is used and if it's not technically this thing, they won't use that term. So like Pearl, for instance, is a very specific term that means a specific thing about the paper. But to me, pearl just means, oh, like a luster finish. So. [01:00:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:52] Speaker A: Or. Or like an iridescent base like Kodak's Pearl paper. But they have like, very specific terminology, so they're like, unwilling to veer off of that. So a lot of their papers, they won't straight up say barida. And it might not be Berita. It might be a Barita, like type paper. Their website's really good, though. Like, if you just Google the paper, it'll probably. The first link will probably be to Ilford's page. About it. And they have all the specs written out on like what the finish is and all that kind of stuff. But like gold fiber rag. I don't know how much the sheen will actually show on the, on the video here, but it's like a little bit of sheen. [01:01:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:37] Speaker A: A little bit of reflection there, but it's not terrible. [01:01:40] Speaker A: Yeah, it's not distracting. I like that one a lot. The, the one I've done recently, in fact, in my last video I did a couple prints on, it was fine art smooth pearl. This is again, their terminology drives me nuts because they have, they have a smooth pearl which is a completely different paper, looks completely different. And then they have a fine art smooth pearl which is more like a baryta. The terminology is so confusing that I asked them, hey, can you send me some fine art smooth pearl for free? And they sent me smooth pearl because they even, they got it wrong. Yeah, their own terminology, they can't really get it right. But that, that one's pretty cool. It's a little more dull, but it's, it's got a little bit of sheen to it. Almost like a kind of pearlescent base even. But yeah, I'm, I'm kind of leaning more towards that. That genre of paper I guess you could say is the brightest because if you can get one with just the right amount of sheen where it's not, not distracting, it's pretty nice. And the, the main thing I like about them is, or I should say that the main thing I hate about glossy is the gloss differential you can get on them. So that's an actual term they use in the printing world. But gloss differential is where you know the paper has a certain gloss level to it, but the ink itself has a certain gloss level to it. So if you put down a lot of ink in one area and very little ink in the other area, the gloss is going to be slightly different because you're mostly the inks gloss over here and you're mostly the paper's gloss over here. So you can actually see that and it almost looks like, almost looks like a topographical map of ink. You know where like some areas you can almost see that it looks thicker because the, the gloss is different on it and like straight up, just inkjet glossy papers. Yeah, you can sometimes see it. High contrast images. You can really. [01:03:40] Speaker C: Well, it's, it's a photo. Sorry, you can't say at the snow. So there's a lot of white. [01:03:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:03:45] Speaker C: So I was like, I wonder if if. [01:03:47] Speaker A: So that'll Be primarily the gloss of the paper and then like the helicopter there and the people and everything will be more. The gloss of the ink. Yeah. Now sometimes it's not noticeable at all because if the paper is pretty good at matching the glossiness of the ink then it, you don't really notice. But some papers it's super noticeable and it'll look almost like the, the light areas. So like the snow areas on that just looks like naked paper and it looks like it forgot to put down ink. So then you if from the right angle it just looks like an inkjet print. And that's the, that's one of the biggest things I don't like about glossy prints. And Barida doesn't have that nearly as bad. It's almost like the, the white part of it blends a little bit better with the glossiness of the. The inked areas. But I've been experimenting with a lot more papers than I ever used to. I kind of was just a matte only guy forever. But I'm trying to, trying to branch out because when you start experimenting with these man, some of these papers are gorgeous and like a picture will look just like it's made for that paper and this other image is made for that paper and like you kind of start to figure out oh this one's going to look good if it's got that little bit of brighter sheen but that one's going to look good on, on full matte, you know. So fun to experiment with it. [01:05:04] Speaker C: Yeah. I think these are actually. So these are some six by four test prints I was doing when I was trying to get the colors right on this frustrating printer and turns out was the printer's fault at all. And these are actually gold fiber rag 270 GSM. Yeah. Ilford like they were but I, I had a lot of trouble with. Yeah, exactly what you say. Trying to narrow down with Ilford because I always used Canton. [01:05:31] Speaker C: What I was buying, you know with the names. It was really tricky. [01:05:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:05:35] Speaker C: Because I was trying to find a match for the brighter. [01:05:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Like the equivalent. [01:05:40] Speaker C: The equivalent thing. [01:05:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:05:42] Speaker C: And I think when we, when we did that originally I we ordered six papers and none of them were anything like what we thought we were getting. And one was almost really glossy. I think it might have been one of those pearls but like, like a smooth pearl or something like that. It was really glossy. [01:05:56] Speaker A: It's basically a luster. Yeah. I know some of their pearls are like full blown gloss. I know it's it. I don't know if they sell these sample packs. I hope they do because this is, they sent me this because they sent me a whole care package. But that has been the most valuable for me because you really see the, the sheen right on it. But man, I'm, I'm gonna keep, keep hounding them because like it's, it's kind of they're digging their own grave with that. It's like people aren't going to be able to come from Hannah Mule and know, oh, here's the equivalent to what I was using, a hand meal. Like the, the terminology needs to be consistent across manufacturers just for the sake of competition. But they're pretty dead set on like yeah, but the, the higher ups in Japan, they're not going to of be conscious cool with it. So. [01:06:44] Speaker A: All right, last, by the way, you want to hear something interesting about GSM that they. Oh yeah, they taught me. So paper, for anyone who's not familiar with this stuff at all, papers always have a GSM indication. Grams per square meter. And that's the weight of the paper. And that's often used to describe the thickness of the paper because it makes sense. You know, if the paper's thicker then it's going to weigh more. So Canon even takes that to an extreme where they have limits on what GSM paper it will accept in the top feed versus the back feed. [01:07:19] Speaker C: Yes they do. [01:07:20] Speaker A: Yes. [01:07:21] Speaker C: And it frustrates the hell out of me because I don't have enough space to use the back feed. [01:07:25] Speaker A: Super. Plus the margins are worse on the, the back feed. So like if you want to do a little 4 by 6 high GSM paper, it has to go in the back and you may not be able to print all the way to the edge or whatever. But anyway, so, so GSM I've always associated with the thickness of the paper. But what the guys at OFER pointed out is like, well, there's other things that factor into weight of a paper. How loosely packed the fibers are. For instance, so like some papers, they'll actually be thicker but they weigh less because it's a looser binding of the fibers. And then not only that, there's, there's fine art papers and then there's oh my God, I can't believe I'm spacing on the. I just did a whole freaking lesson on this. There's papers that have a coating, so they have the plastic coating. And those would be like your lusters, your glossies, your like photo papers. So they call them photo papers versus fine art papers. Now make moments, make no Mistake. They all have a coating. Even fine art papers have a coating. But the photo papers have like an actual plastic coating. So it's made of polyethylene. [01:08:42] Speaker A: And plastic is pretty heavy. So you can have a plastic coated paper which is thinner, but it weighs a lot more than the fine art paper. Yeah, so the fine art paper. Yeah, so. So it gets kind of weird because you'll compare two papers and it's like, okay, this one's 300 GSM, this one's 200 GSM, but the 200 GSM is thicker. And it's because the 300 GSM has a heavier coating on it or it's more tightly packed fibers on the inside. And so it almost doesn't even equate to thickness. And yet we all use GSM to describe thickness. Thickness is really measured in microns. [01:09:29] Speaker C: And like, do they advertise thickness at all? Does anyone advertise thickness? [01:09:33] Speaker A: But it's buried. So like they know no one's really looking at that. So like Ilford, you can go to their website. In every paper it'll have the GSM and the microns. [01:09:43] Speaker B: Right. [01:09:44] Speaker A: And then you can actually compare the literal thickness. But that's why some papers you'll pick up, it's like, oh, this is a 308 GSM. This is going to feel like hefty, like cardstock. And you pick it up and it's totally flimsy. It's because it's got really tightly packed fibers and. Or a heavier coating on the front. [01:10:01] Speaker C: Interesting. [01:10:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:10:02] Speaker C: Because yeah, I think this Canon, maybe it's just crappy. I got some Canon paper just when I was trying to get colors right. I was like, I'm just going to throw cannon paper through this thing just. [01:10:10] Speaker A: To like do some cheap paper. [01:10:12] Speaker C: Do some cheap. And yeah, it feels really thin, but it's like a glossy. It's like there, it's way glossier than I thought it was going to be. Whatever it's called, it's like their fancy one that has the holographic packaging that's all nice. Like the premium something Canon really like. [01:10:29] Speaker A: To let you know you're buying authentic Canon stuff. Their batteries and everything. [01:10:33] Speaker C: Well, yeah, except on the battery itself. But I was saying this. So I just bought an 6 Mark III, which is like the new kind of mid level working man's camera, you know, like it sort of does everything. It's, it's right in the middle, but it's still a decently expensive camera. And I've got more expensive Canon cameras than that. Too. And the boxes, it's like I've bought like, like a cheap bit of electronics from a department store or whatever. Like it's, it's the box. Like there's no unboxing experience. It was sort of like. It only dawned on me the other day. I was like, they. I don't know, there's. There's places selling things for a hundred dollars that put way more effort into the unboxing experience than like. Yeah, a five thousand dollar camera. It's quite crazy. [01:11:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:11:16] Speaker B: But you also have. [01:11:17] Speaker A: Sorry, Nick, I was just gonna say I bought stuff on Amazon. Some crappy little electronic. And it's like, you know, everything on the box is mistranslated and everything. But the boxing experience is incredible. Like they put all of their R D into the box and like the product itself sucks. Product sucks. [01:11:33] Speaker C: Maybe that's. Maybe canons. Okay, I'll give them that. Maybe they're putting their time into the cameras and not the box. I'll give them that. But I still think you also have. [01:11:39] Speaker B: High standards for your own products, for lucky straps. Like the way that you package them is quite special and thoughtful. [01:11:46] Speaker C: That's true. [01:11:47] Speaker B: And I know it's a different scale of economy, but there is effort there. You've made very specific choices about recycled cardboard and cotton bags and the postcards and the stickers. Like it's a, it's a. It's almost like a care package you get with your strap. [01:11:59] Speaker C: I think it's just because I like, I, I really like. What's this called when it's like foil printing? [01:12:06] Speaker A: Oh yeah. Yeah. [01:12:07] Speaker C: I just, I just really like foil printing. So I just. We put that on stuff and. Yeah, but it's. [01:12:12] Speaker A: You just think matters, man. Makes you feel like you got something special, valuable. [01:12:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:12:16] Speaker C: And I think if you were. If you. I don't know, if I was a camera band, I'd be thinking, this is becoming. There's still obviously a lot of working pros, but working pros still want to feel like they've bought something special and they're part of something special. Especially if it's like a brand thing. You know, if you've been a Canon shooter for, for decades and maybe, you know, Sony's looking a little bit tempting if you, if you starting. If you have no like brand affinity because you literally just get this black box with a camera in it that doesn't even have a manual anymore. It has. It came with a getting started booklet that was so thick it looked like a manual, but it just has every three pages of every language on the planet that basically says down, download the manual with this QR code. [01:12:59] Speaker A: Code. Yeah. [01:12:59] Speaker C: Like, it's. [01:13:00] Speaker A: I was like, it's. [01:13:02] Speaker C: It's lost. It's. I used to read the manuals. Every camera I got, I would read the paper manual. Oh, yeah? Yeah. [01:13:08] Speaker A: And now I would look them up ahead of time and read them before I bought the camera. [01:13:12] Speaker C: Yeah. Nice. [01:13:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:13:14] Speaker B: Just quick comment here. Of course, Stacy. A8000. I had no idea unboxing experiences was a thing. So that's what it was when I unboxed my Fuji. Yes. Plus a little bit of unicorn blood. They just splash it. Splash in the top of the box. So when you open it, it kind of. It's this ethereal experience. In Japan. [01:13:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:13:33] Speaker B: Japanese unicorns, by the way, not. Not your standard European unicorns. [01:13:36] Speaker A: The JPEG film recipes come fluttering out like butterflies. [01:13:41] Speaker C: And the whole world just starts to look. Yeah, exactly. Look like fake. [01:13:46] Speaker B: It's almost like I've been watching this guy's videos. He makes these really intricate porch parcel bombs when people come and steal his past. Yeah. He's made a whole, like, career out of it. Yeah, it's a bit like that. [01:13:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:13:59] Speaker B: There's glitter and stuff. [01:14:00] Speaker C: That's the unboxing experience. [01:14:02] Speaker A: You want to be showered in glitter when you unbox your camera. [01:14:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:14:07] Speaker C: Dennis is here. What's up, Dennis? He says the Q3 box was special. Yes, the Q3 box was special. That's probably. [01:14:14] Speaker B: You paid a thousand dollars just for the box. [01:14:16] Speaker C: That's right. I wouldn't expect Canon to go to that level, but it was quite like. It's got, like, little magnetic latches and stuff. They put a lot of work into that. But that's what happens when you charge that much for a camera. [01:14:26] Speaker A: So can I just bring up. I'm going to ruffle some others here. What's the Q3? [01:14:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:14:32] Speaker A: All right. I should have known. Leica. I know nothing about Leica. I'm so confused by all the terminology and, like, all the. The summicron and all this kind of stuff. People say it to me like I'm speaking their language. Like I know their language. [01:14:43] Speaker C: I don't know what this summicron thing. I don't know what the lens terminology is, but you. [01:14:49] Speaker B: A lot of them. [01:14:50] Speaker C: Yeah, there's. Yeah. And they're all different. You don't realize one's. One's like 3,000 and the next one's 15,000. And you don't know what the difference is because they look the same. Yeah. You're Like I don't know, every time. [01:15:01] Speaker A: I've looked into it I just throw my hands up. I'm like, it's, it's not for me, it's too much. I can't learn a new language. I'm too old. [01:15:06] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:15:07] Speaker B: Speaking of too old, Dennis Smith is in the chat. Just another comment from Dennis. He says, I'm back. He, he's been ducking in and out. We'll watch back later. But Nick was my go to when I was going to do a large format light painting project. So approachable, so inspiring. Thanks heaps mate. [01:15:23] Speaker A: Thank you, sir. [01:15:24] Speaker B: There's a good, good example of the use of the word mate. [01:15:27] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, very much in the nice way. Yeah. [01:15:31] Speaker C: Dennis, Dennis is a, is an interesting artist, Nick. So he does a lot of light painting. [01:15:38] Speaker C: Stuff. I don't know how do you, I don't even know how to describe it. [01:15:40] Speaker B: Bring up his website. [01:15:43] Speaker A: Or Instagram. [01:15:45] Speaker C: Anyway, lots of light painting with light painting tools as well. So as well as say like painting this scene, he'll also put. [01:15:53] Speaker A: Like designs. [01:15:53] Speaker C: And stuff, designs and movements and things with like wands that he's built and stuff like that. [01:15:58] Speaker B: So he makes all his own stuff. [01:16:00] Speaker C: And then he'll, you know, he'll sort of basically perform through the scene so that every shot is a choreographed dance almost of what he's trying to achieve with a, with the long story short. [01:16:11] Speaker A: That stuff's tough, man. You gotta remember where you, he gets where you went already. [01:16:16] Speaker C: He, he downloads it into his brain somehow because he can repeat the pattern. If he's trying to get something, he's like, I like that but I wanted a bit more of this or whatever. And he repeats the whole scene just to finish something over there anyway. But yeah, we were at a photography festival, the bright festival of photography and he decided he was going to try and break a, a world record that no one has ever done before. So it's just a made up world record. Which was the most. [01:16:43] Speaker C: Most ever light painting portraits in one hour on Instax film. Fuji, you know those Instax cameras. So he had to 3D print because there's no bulb mode for him to do the things. 3D print, like what do you call the things? [01:17:00] Speaker A: Yeah, cable Release. [01:17:02] Speaker C: That's it. 3D print things to make cable releases. He had three Instax cameras on a, like a tripod rig. He had multiple people operating the cameras. I think he ended up doing 180 portraits. Light painting portraits in one hour of 180 different humans. Yeah, yeah. He was Just like dancing. [01:17:22] Speaker B: And because it was Instax, it couldn't be repeated because. Yeah, everyone, everyone got their, their print. But then on the back I think he put a sticker with a QR code, but they'd already moved away. But you know, there was no, there was. Apart from people doing behind the scenes footage and photos, you know, it was one and done. That's it. Never to be repeated. So everyone this unique part of his. [01:17:43] Speaker C: World record attempt and he hasn't seen most of them because 198. [01:17:48] Speaker A: Yeah, he had. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:17:50] Speaker C: It was just in case, case you're going to try and break the record. [01:17:53] Speaker B: Was all it took to get to 200. That's slack. [01:17:56] Speaker A: That's wild. Yeah, jeez, it's creative. [01:18:00] Speaker B: But that brings up a really good point. So, you know, on the show we've interviewed a lot of people so far and Dennis is an example of people that have 3D printed components to optimize their workflow and the tools that they're using. You know, another friend of our show, Greg Carrick, he prints lens mounts for his GFX because he'll put like old school projection lenses on them and, and he'll, he'll have the mounts 3D printed. And you do that with some of your, some of your large format cameras. How, how is that, that use of technology. [01:18:32] Speaker B: Integrated into such an old school application like large format film? How, how have you found that process? [01:18:39] Speaker A: Yeah, it's cool, man. I mean I, I don't know the first thing about 3D printing, but I know a guy who's an absolute expert on it. Um, and he happens to have the same, same camera I do with my panoramic. So. Yeah, and he's very passionate about building stuff, you know, solutions and all that kind of thing. But yeah, he and I work together to make a reflex viewer for that, that camera. So, you know, I, I would assume everyone watching this is familiar that the, the image is upside down on a large format camera when you're looking at the ground glass. But this reflex viewer turns it upright, you get to look down into your camera instead of get under a hood and all that kind of stuff. So we worked on that for several months and man, it's, it's crazy what 3D printing can do. It's. Yeah, it's wild. It's like way better. I guess it's better than it used to be because I used to see 3D printed stuff and just be like garbage. [01:19:33] Speaker C: Just looks, it looks cruddy. [01:19:34] Speaker A: Like it just looked like a 3D. [01:19:37] Speaker B: Printed residual printers were so popular. [01:19:39] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. There's a lot of trinkets, like. Yeah, and I get it, you know, that you have to make those things to figure out the technology and all that kind of stuff. So I'm not knocking that. But it never seemed like it was something that, like I would put on a $3,000 camera until I worked with this guy and we made it. And yeah, I'm. It's so cool. It's like a product come true. And I'm working with another guy to try and make a fully 3D printed 6 by 17 camera that's like fully customizable into what movements you want. If you only need shift and rise and hey, there we go. Someone bought it. Thank you for being a customer. [01:20:20] Speaker A: And yeah, so he bought a 3D printed 6 by 17 camera. So people have been making 3D printed 6 by 17s. I think one of them is Chroma. Makes some Kraken, I think is another one that makes some like, crazy ones, like, really panoramic. So it. It's so cool, man, that technology, when I saw it first come out, I'm kind of like, all right, what do you. What are you gonna do with that? Like, mass produce products with this super slow 3D printer. But it's really opened up certain film formats to noble design. Someone. Someone said noble design? [01:20:56] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:20:56] Speaker A: His. His cameras are fantastic. And they're. They're so cool because it's opening formats to people where it would be cost prohibitive otherwise. And like, I love 6 by 17 so much. It's. It's my only format. If I only could shoot one format, it's. It's just my favorite. So the fact that people can get into it without having to invest three grand on a camera like I have, it's just opening it to a lot of people. So it's really, really cool technology. [01:21:28] Speaker C: Yeah, that's very cool. It's great to see because when you do get excited, you watch a few Nick Carver YouTube videos and you're like, man, I'd really like to try this. But then that world is daunting in terms of just trying to find a camera to like. I've been tempted just by regular kind of medium format film cameras, but I would prefer something. [01:21:51] Speaker C: The way that I see the subjects I would shoot film with is generally. Unless I was shooting 35 mil and just shooting street or something like that, I want something a bit wider, I think like a six by nine. What are they like, the. [01:22:08] Speaker C: Expensive one, everyone. Yeah. [01:22:10] Speaker A: What's there's the expensive one, the Mamiya seven, I think is four. [01:22:16] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:22:17] Speaker A: Six by seven. [01:22:18] Speaker C: Six by seven. [01:22:19] Speaker A: The six by nine. The. Are you thinking of the Fuji? [01:22:21] Speaker C: The Fuji. [01:22:22] Speaker A: And is there a. [01:22:24] Speaker B: Was that Fujifilm? Justin? Yeah. [01:22:26] Speaker C: Isn't there a hassle, Blood? Is there a Hassi. That's the. [01:22:29] Speaker A: Is there something six by nine? I don't think so. There's an xpan. [01:22:34] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the xpan. What is it? What format is that? [01:22:37] Speaker A: So that's got a weird aspect ratio. It's like a decimal point. I don't remember. Or it's like, you know, like 24 by 36 or something. It wouldn't be that, that reduces, but it's, you know, 24 by 37 or whatever. But I, I'm someone. Correct me in the comments, please, because I know the XPAN shooters are. Are pretty hardcore, but yeah, the X bands are real. [01:22:58] Speaker C: Thank you. [01:22:59] Speaker A: Okay. I knew. I knew someone. I knew someone had it. So, yeah, 65 by 24. So kind of a weird format because if it was 64 by 24, it would reduce to a much more reasonable. Reasonable fraction anyway. So, yeah, the X bands, like, I. I coveted one of those for so freaking long. They're such cool cameras. And I love the idea of like doing street photography, pano and everything, but those have kind of entered the realm of Leicas, where. Yeah, they're. They're really great cameras, but they're also just highly coveted trophy cameras. Yeah, that. It skyrocketed the price and they're. They're through the roof. And you know, getting someone getting one that's like fully functional and, and in good working order is even tougher. But that's gonna be off the list for me because. What do you got there? [01:23:46] Speaker C: This is the closest thing that I could find, but it's just not quite. [01:23:50] Speaker A: It's Rocket. Rocket Sprocket Rocket. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:23:52] Speaker C: So this was like 120 Australian dollars or something like that, but obviously like that. That comes with a lot of. A lot of limitations and issues. So, yeah, like something between this and an XPAN is what I'd love to play with. But that's why I'm hoping some of those 3D printed cameras could be the answer. [01:24:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:24:14] Speaker B: But also, Nick, you might be aware of this. Jeff Bridges with his Wide Lux project. They've just finished concept stage. [01:24:22] Speaker A: Yeah, that's really camera. [01:24:24] Speaker B: And they're looking at moving into production, so that's huge. Any new film camera is a good film camera, in my opinion, you know. [01:24:30] Speaker A: Absolutely. Especially more Complex cameras like that. So like it's really great seeing all the 3D printing stuff and it's great seeing like there, there's a really healthy ecosystem of large format cameras because people, people can do woodworking, you know, and they, they can do stuff like that. Where I think there's a big gap in the market is like a complex medium format or 35 millimeter camera, you know, that has film advance and works with modern lenses and has electrical components in it. It's not just like a 3D printed box that you can attach lenses to. Like that's really missing. I keep hoping and praying that Mamiya is going to come back from the dead. Like someone's going to come along and buy the brand and revive it. But I'm also fully aware that all the machines that made those parts, they're gone and they're not coming back. So it's the, the R D it would require to like make a new RZ67 is just, it's not there. No one, no one has it. But I think what the first one we're gonna see if it does ever happen is either probably not Canon. I don't see them getting motivated about this. But Nikon could potentially make a film 35 millimeter camera that's wouldn't require that much retooling on their, on their factory. And then it would be a reason for them to sell lenses. So they may actually have motivation to do it. So I, I really hope they, or maybe even Fuji. But the only problem with Fuji is they've committed themselves to APS C format, that it wouldn't easily translate to 35 millimeter with all their lenses. But it'd be great if a company came out like, like Nikon and just said, we got a brand new film camera. It's full, you know, autofocus, it's got automatic film advance. It's got all the things you want in a, in a modern camera, but it's a film camera. Now I know some people, maybe even in the chat right now are screaming that Leica is still making film cameras or they recently brought back the film camera. I'm not talking about a ten thousand dollar unattainable, yeah, like handmade camera. I'm talking about like a mass produced, you know, camera like we used to have. It'd be nice if someone came along and did that, but I just don't, I don't know if the market is there for these big companies. [01:26:59] Speaker B: You know, we've talked about that a few times and you know we saw Pentax, was it late last year or early this year? Brought out the 17. [01:27:08] Speaker C: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:27:09] Speaker B: A half frame film camera. There's been a real resurgence in sort of more 35 mil near disposable compact film cameras. They're flooding the market and I think the biggest challenge is that retailers are seeing this as a, as almost like a bit of a cash cow. We're going to, we're going to hit up cashed up hipsters, we're going to sell on film cameras and we're going to make a ton of money. Like even a couple weeks ago I was talking on the show about every now and then, especially when I used to go to Japan for street photography. I just pick up a handful of disposable cameras, 35mil disposables and just have a bit of fun, you know. And then I'd usually shoot everything on digital, but on Fujifilm of course. But like in Australia here now they're 40 to 50 bucks. 40 to 50 Australian dollars for a disposable? [01:28:00] Speaker A: Yep. [01:28:01] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:28:01] Speaker A: Oh yeah. [01:28:02] Speaker B: They just. The cost of film is, is horrendous at the moment especially. Yeah, yeah. [01:28:07] Speaker A: It's unfortunate, I get torn on that because I know a lot of it is the environmental regulations now, which I'm for. I, you know, I'm for the environment. I don't know how else to put it, but. Yeah, but at the same time it's like, jeez, it sucks that this is just getting unattainable and. Yeah, yeah, you know, I, I even struggle with that on like I, I fully acknowledge that film photography is worse for the environment than digital photography. At least if you're not buying a new digital camera every, you know, six months or something. Yeah, because I mean the e, the e. Waste is terrible. So like even factoring that part of it in, like, I, I understand that like, yeah, you know, putting a piece of plastic through your film and then putting it into chemicals is not the most environmentally friendly. But I love it so much. I don't want to, like, I don't want it to go away and I don't want it to be so expensive that people can't get into it. Yeah, I know some, some companies are trying to make an effort to make it more affordable. You know, you got the kind of independent cat labs and Harmon and you know, companies like that that are trying to make, make films a little more attainable for people. [01:29:17] Speaker B: And we're also starting to see more, mostly 35 mil brands pop up in China and they're putting out cheap, quite cheap options now. [01:29:26] Speaker C: Lucky film. Is it lucky film? [01:29:27] Speaker B: I think it is Lucky or Lucky Star or something. [01:29:30] Speaker C: We're like hey, that's my name. [01:29:35] Speaker C: Hang on, there's a comment here. I want to. I am get. We will get to everyone's comments, I promise. Maybe there was one that. It's a lot this one while we're on cameras. There's a lot while we're on cameras. So we'll get to all the camera ones basically from now we'll get. There's one about Intrepid and stuff. So we're, we're getting there. But this one I just wanted what's your opinion on Jeff Bridges wide Lux Revival project? [01:29:57] Speaker A: I love seeing it come back. I'm a little worried it's going to be so expensive that it's going to be another kind of unattainable camera. [01:30:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:30:04] Speaker A: Which I'm not even saying it shouldn't be expensive. That's a complex camera, those cameras. So I've worked with one swing lens cameras and NobleX that worked a little different is medium format. And so let me see if I can explain this. So you have a swing lens that goes across to make the image. Right. The way the wide lux works is it just starts on one side and then swings to the other side. And so you think about it like it has to, it has to be the consist a consistent speed across the whole range which is kind of complex to do because it has to pick up speed and then it has to slow down to stop. So what the Noble X did was it actually did a different design. The, the slit was like went 360 degrees. So it like went into the camera to pick up speed to get momentum and then came out to create the image and then stop. [01:31:01] Speaker B: Wow. [01:31:01] Speaker A: Camera. So it, that kept the speed more consistent across the, the exposure. And so it was you know, a little bit better in that sense. But those cameras have so much complexity to them because not only do you have a swinging lens which you got a time with shutter speeds and all that kind of stuff, but the film has to be loaded in a curve and so it's going over a lot more rollers and stuff. And so scratches across the film are, are a bigger issue and all that kind of stuff. So all that's to say like it's a pretty complex thing. So I wouldn't be surprised if it's expensive and they're not going to be built in the volume that they used to be. So then that's going to make them Even more expensive. So I, I love to see it. It's a cool camera. I'm obviously kind of interested in it just for the sake of it being pano. But the swing lens stuff I didn't really take to personally when I tried it. It. [01:32:02] Speaker A: There. There's issues that come along with that if you're dealing with any sort of motion in the scene because the, the left side of the image is a different point in time than the right side of the image, you know, so things can get a little weird. Just didn't. Didn't jive with me. But that's probably the first camera I've seen where I'm like, okay, that is a proper camera being brought back from the dead. Like a, a metal Leica excluded. I know. Can hear, hear the Leica guys. [01:32:32] Speaker C: The. [01:32:34] Speaker C: The. [01:32:35] Speaker A: It looked like the first like proper camera. Like, okay, this is like a real metal thing with complex mechanisms that's been carefully made. It's not like coming out of. Out of a 3D printer. So really cool to see that. That come to fruition. It's a good thing Jeff Bridges is into that because I don't think it would. It would have happened otherwise. [01:32:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, he's been into that forever. [01:32:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:32:56] Speaker B: I remember when it was first announced because on a Monday night show where you often cover the news and current events and things like that. [01:33:04] Speaker C: Photography news, not. Yeah, yeah, no, no, like politics and. [01:33:07] Speaker B: No, definitely not politics. But. But yeah, we, when we first heard about it and the, the. I think it was on Petapixel, the article had a whole bunch of his images from, from sets, from movie sets that he's worked on throughout his life. And that just. That wide angle view was just so. That panoramic view is so beautiful. It just. [01:33:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:33:28] Speaker B: Added to the story so much more. [01:33:31] Speaker A: Yeah. And he's had such an interesting life. So it's like. [01:33:33] Speaker B: Yeah, he has. [01:33:34] Speaker A: You could point an Etch a Sketch at any point in his life and it's going to be an amazing photo, you know, but not to take away anything from his photography. He's an amazing photographer, of course. But yeah, man, it's. I, I love unique formats. I love unique ways to take pictures. It's obviously part of why I'm a 6x17 shooter. It's not super common, but a swing lens, panoramic 35 millimeter. That's pretty damn cool. That's a, That's a rarity. [01:34:02] Speaker B: Yep. Can we just roll back the clock a little? You know, you talk about the. [01:34:08] Speaker A: What. [01:34:08] Speaker C: Sorry, Greg, I really Want to. I just. While we're on cameras, very quickly, because we're gonna go. Okay, you're going to go way back. [01:34:15] Speaker B: Well, I just wanted to see where some of that inspiration came from to shoot with unusual formats. [01:34:19] Speaker A: But we'll. [01:34:19] Speaker B: You do your thing first, Justin. [01:34:21] Speaker C: I mean, let's. [01:34:22] Speaker B: Did I have a thought? [01:34:24] Speaker C: I just want to whip through some of these chat questions about cameras specifically because this one's been in a couple of times. [01:34:31] Speaker C: What is it? Did you get to see or check out the intrepid Super 120 system, the 4x5 back that makes it possible to shoot 6 by 12? And what did you think of it? [01:34:40] Speaker A: I. It's brilliant, man. I think that's so cool. The. So to fill anybody in who doesn't know what that is. So Intrepid makes large format cameras based out of the UK, I believe, but they came up with this 3D printed medium format back that can be attached to 4x5 large format cameras. And it can shoot like a wide variety of formats. So you can do, I think everything from 645 to 6x12. And what's really cool about it is, is you can change formats frame to frame. So like you could. Oh, wow. Yeah. Take a six by six picture and then the next one you take six by 12. And you know, you can. You're not limited to any one format through the entire roll, which is really freaking cool. It's a complex thing to go through it. Yeah, there it is. So to like switch from one format to another, you have to like, look at this grid on the back and be like, okay, I just shot six by six, six and now I want to shoot six by 12. So I need to put the switch at letter G. You know, it's like, oh, it's. It's a. It's a complex thing. It's the cleanest way they could have done it. So they. It's actually an ingenious design, but it's just kind of funny how complex it is to try and get multiple formats onto one roll. Yeah. And you can see all the parts and I think you assemble it yourself, if I'm not mistaken. [01:35:54] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [01:35:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Which is. That alone would be pretty fun. The way the film is loaded is pretty wild. So I watched a little video on how the. How the film's loaded and it's a really interesting loading system. Like it kind of goes through these channels, almost like these little canyons to get to the front. And I noticed it, it holds the film down on the top and Bottom of the, the roll. Which is a good thing because anyone who's been following my odyssey on my YouTube channel of trying to get my film to lay flattering on my 6 by 17. A lot of the problem is there's no pressure across the top and bottom of the frame because most cameras don't have real, real good pressure there. Or at least I shouldn't say most cameras. My, my Shannon doesn't have great pressure across the top like that. But. [01:36:46] Speaker A: It'S a really cool, cool mechanism. The only thing that has kind of steered me away from. Yeah, this is the video on how to, how to load it. So you guys can watch this kind of. It's a process. So you actually drop it into a, into a hole and then you kind of like wrap it around. [01:37:07] Speaker A: Pretty smart. Wow. And then watch. You have to feed it under, under these little grooves on the front. So it's a process. I like. Big kudos to them for moving forward with it because I can't imagine how many times in the design process they're like, this is too freaking complicated. We can't, we can't do it. But they, they move forward. So pretty awesome system. The, the only thing with shooting 120 on a large format camera is. [01:37:37] Speaker A: Large format cameras don't have super wide angle lenses available in medium format terms. So like super wide angle on a 4x5 would be 72 millimeters. Like that's, that's crazy wide. [01:37:52] Speaker A: There are some like 40 something millimeters I think, but they have a much smaller image circle and they're kind of built for medium format. But the majority of large format lenses the average person is going to have in their arsenal or be able to find on ebay, they're not going to be any wider than 72. So 72 on like a 645 negative is not wide. So if you're into super wide angle, those medium format backs for large format generally don't really work out. But it's pretty freaking cool, man. I wish that thing went up to 6 by 17 just to see if they got the film perfectly flat. I'd just be curious to see. But 6 by 12 still pretty good. Pretty good format. [01:38:35] Speaker B: And I watched last night on one of your videos, the one with the, the beer gifting bro. [01:38:43] Speaker B: And you were talking about you had like almost. You had some cut down pencils. [01:38:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:38:47] Speaker B: That you slid under the film to create that tension against the back. [01:38:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:38:51] Speaker B: How's, how's that working out? [01:38:53] Speaker A: It's working great. So like I, I'm, I'M the, the. The guy I know that's a 3D printing guy and made the reflex viewer with me and everything. Like we're trying to work out a solution that's a little more elegant than that and a little more permanent. But I, I reach a point sometimes where I'm like, I don't know, it's so easy to slide the pencils in and like, they're cheap and it works really freaking well. It's like, why come up with a, a more, a more elegant solution but. [01:39:19] Speaker B: You know, well, and they just slot in perfectly once you drop them in and they roll if. [01:39:23] Speaker A: Yeah, it holds them in and everything is perfect. [01:39:25] Speaker B: It's like. [01:39:25] Speaker A: Yeah, it's very simple, simple solution. So if there's anything I'm good at, it's coming up with very obscure, simple solutions for very obscure products no one cares about. You know, that's really. Yeah, that's how I get the medium bucks. [01:39:38] Speaker B: You should, you should patent that. [01:39:41] Speaker C: One more quick one, Greg, before and then we can go. Go wild. This one was from a while ago in a NutShell. New to 4x5. Do I just get good with 4 by 5 before progressing to 6 by 17? Especially with the progression to developing and scanning. [01:39:59] Speaker A: It's a good question. I get this one via email sometimes. But. [01:40:05] Speaker A: So if, if you have a large format camera 4x5 specifically and you're looking at doing 6 by 17, you basically have two options. You can get a dedicated 6 by 17 camera or you can get a 6 by 17 back for your 4x5. [01:40:20] Speaker A: Those are great to figure out if you, if you like 6 by 17. [01:40:29] Speaker A: If you end up really taking the 6 by 17, you'll find it annoying and you'll want to get a dedicated 6 by 17 camera. Because the problem with those 6 x 17 backs is it's a few things. One, it's a little more cumbersome to use because you have to have a separate viewer that you attach to the camera. You compose, you remove the viewer, then you attach the film. And versus a 6x17 camera like I use, which is a Shenhou, the viewer is always there and then it just flips down to put the roll film on. Sounds like a minor thing, but when you're out doing large format, there's so many things you're juggling in terms of like the hood, the stopwatch, the cable release. Like to have one more thing that you have to remove and put down in the bag just kind of drove me nuts. But the bigger issue is the 6 by 17 backs on 4x5 are limited in what lenses you can use, so you won't really be able to go wider angle than about 90 millimeters, which, that's fine, that's my widest. But the 90 millimeter will probably have to be on a recessed lens board, which are kind of annoying to use. And then you won't be able to use focal lengths beyond about 180. So if you have like a 210 millimeter lens you really love, you're not going to be able to use that on your 6x17 attached to your 4x5 because the opening for the back of the 4x5 is too small for the image circle to get all the way to 6 by 17. So. [01:41:58] Speaker A: Super specific question with a super specific answer. But I would just say. [01:42:04] Speaker A: If you want to get a 6 by 17 back just to see if you really take to 6 by 17 if it's worth getting the camera, that's a good, good option because it would really suck to buy like a 3000$6x17 and then you're over it two months later. So I would maybe do that, go on ebay, just get like a cheap day I think is one of the brands out of China, and work on that for a little while, see if you like it and then Maybe get a 6x17 if you really take to it. [01:42:33] Speaker B: Good advice. Very good advice. [01:42:35] Speaker C: That's what I would have said. [01:42:36] Speaker B: Yes, echoed my, my thoughts. So, Nick, one thing we do like to do here is we like to sort of unravel a little bit about your backstory so we know where you're at now and. But where did photography start for you? Was it, you know, did you have artistic parents? Did you have a mentor in high school or perhaps a teacher? Where did that all start? When did you pick up your first camera? [01:43:02] Speaker A: I picked it up when I was 13. Or at least that's when I was a ser. What I would call a serious camera. It was an slr. There was a class at my middle school. [01:43:15] Speaker A: Seventh grade, grade seven, as I think maybe you guys see over there. [01:43:20] Speaker C: Year seven wanted to make sure everyone. [01:43:22] Speaker A: Understood what I was talking about here. [01:43:23] Speaker C: For some reason we go from grade six to year seven. [01:43:27] Speaker A: Oh, really? [01:43:28] Speaker C: Yeah. Why? Why? I don't know why after. So it's year 7, year 8, year 9, but it's grade 5, grade 4, grade 5, grade 6, then straight to year 7. [01:43:38] Speaker A: So like in high school, grade 9, grade 10, grade 11, grade 12. 12. Yep. Okay. [01:43:42] Speaker B: Oh, no year. It's all year. [01:43:44] Speaker A: Sorry. Sorry, year. Yeah, year. [01:43:46] Speaker C: Year 10, year 11, year 12, finish school. So because we basically have primary school up until grade six, which is when you're 12, usually depending on when you started school or whatever. And then when you're 13, you usually go to a different campus, high school for us, and that's year seven, sometimes seven all the way up to 12, and other schools are like seven to 10. And in the last two years are on another campus again. Year 11 in year 12 are like. [01:44:12] Speaker A: More senior high school. [01:44:14] Speaker C: Yeah. Which you guys have a different breakdown, I think, to like when you. When you move sort of into middle school, high school, or whatever. It's called junior high. [01:44:22] Speaker A: What? Yeah. [01:44:23] Speaker C: How does that work? [01:44:23] Speaker A: Yeah, we actually call it both, like middle school and junior high. I think there's a technical difference between them, but I don't know what it is. But like, so I went through sixth grade in elementary school and then just seventh and eighth at middle school. And then high school was ninth through 12th. Right. [01:44:41] Speaker B: Okay. [01:44:42] Speaker A: I don't recommend that system personally, because having just the two grades in one school, it gets a little lord of the fliesy out there. Like, because you have one, you know, head honcho grade and there's only one grade to pick on. And yeah, seventh graders are just bottom of the. The total, like, you know. Yeah, yeah. It's like, it's too even like having one grade of 12th graders and then three grades of people below them. They're outnumbered, so they can't get two. You know what I mean? But like, when it's even seventh and eighth grade, it's like, it's just a little gnarly. [01:45:19] Speaker C: I wonder why they do that. That's really interesting, isn't it? Because there's also a lot of transition. It's like, hey, like new school, okay, now you're the king of the school. Pick on everyone and then you're back to new school again. [01:45:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:45:30] Speaker C: Terrifying. Yeah. [01:45:31] Speaker A: I remember specifically. I know we're getting off track here, but I remember specifically they had an 8th grade graduation for us. [01:45:38] Speaker C: Really? [01:45:39] Speaker A: Yeah. And it was this whole ceremony. You're outside, it's hot because it's summer for us and everything. And like this big to do about. You graduated eighth grade. And like, I was. I was in such a sour mood that day. I was so pissed off. And, like, it took me a while to figure out why I was pissed off because it does take me a while to figure out my emotions. But my parents were like, like, what's wrong? Why are you so mad? I was just like, so, so stupid. I was here for two years. It's not like I was allowed to leave. Everyone graduated. Like, there's no achievement here. Why are we celebrating? [01:46:15] Speaker C: It's a participation certificate that you had. You had no choice. [01:46:19] Speaker A: Yeah, we're making this huge, huge production over two measly years in between elementary school and high school that no one was. No one was allowed to not graduate. So it's not like some. Some big accomplishment. But anyway, what the hell are we talking? Okay, how are you. [01:46:35] Speaker C: Your brain worked like that even when you were like 14, 15. Okay, that's great. [01:46:40] Speaker A: I've been a cynical for. [01:46:41] Speaker B: That explains a lot. [01:46:42] Speaker A: Came out of the womb. [01:46:43] Speaker C: That does explain a lot. I could just imagine you making a video about it. Had YouTube been around? Or you're talking to the camera, like, what are we even doing here? I mean. [01:46:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. My poor parents, man. It must have been so hard to figure out. [01:46:58] Speaker C: But on that note, what. [01:46:59] Speaker B: What came after. What was the next sort of milestone for you in your photography pursuit? What? You know, you said you start off with an SLR. You know, you're. You're still fairly young, about 12. Did you say 12 or 13 when you first. [01:47:12] Speaker A: 13? Yeah, 13. There was a class in that seventh grade that was photography, and it was a very, very short class. It was literally like a few weeks because it was a portion of a trimester. And my friend kind of forced me into it. I didn't want to take it. I thought it was kind of. It sounded boring, so. But he forced me into it, and I'm really glad he did. I've told him since because he kind of got me into it. But. So, you know, around that time, you're trying to figure out what you're going to be doing for the rest of your life at some point, you know, especially in high school. And none of the regular paths of going to college and everything really appealed to me. I was a good student. I was actually a really good student. I was straight A through high school, and I always did my homework on time and all that kind of stuff. So it wasn't that I didn't like academics or anything. I just, like. I don't know. I mean, I'm the one who thought the eighth grade graduation was stupid. So of course I'm not gonna. I'm not going to want to do what everyone else is doing, but. So I kind of decided, well, you know, maybe I can make this a career, you know, And I was going to be. So I. I started applying to OR I started looking at where to go to college for photography, because that was obviously what you did after high school especially. I'm a millennial. Our generation was very much pressured. Yeah, college or you're a loser. And it was very much that. So I was going to be going to this college called Brooks in Santa Barbara, which is photography college. And crazy expensive is private school and all this kind of stuff. But that was the only college I was willing to entertain. So my parents were real motivated to get me into that. And I was, I was kind of like, how you gonna pay for this? I'm not like, this is really freaking expensive. They're like, we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. Figure it out. Because they wanted me to go there. And then we went to an orientation, and it was very disappointing. And it seemed like all of their alumni were not photographers. You know, they were working at camera stores or they were, oh, doing something like that. And I, I noticed that, but no one else seemed to really notice that. But I would go into camera stores and the guy behind the counter would say, oh, I went to Brooks. You know, when it came up that I was going there, so I just kind of put my foot down, like, I'm not going. And that was the only time I thought I was getting kicked out of my parents. Like, they, they didn't threaten that or anything. I was just like, I'm gonna have to run away because they're, they're so disappointed. They're so upset that I'm not going to college because, like, I told him, like, it was Brooks or nothing. I'm not, I'm not going to college. It's like that did not go over well. So I, I, Yeah, I thought about that school for a minute. Okay, so some people know about this. [01:50:04] Speaker C: Yeah, David's from San Francisco. And then the drunk wedding photographers from. [01:50:11] Speaker C: South of la. I think he shoots film. He shoots weddings on film only. [01:50:15] Speaker A: Oh, cool. [01:50:16] Speaker C: Yeah. Which is cool. But he's. He says, my dad drove me to Brooks. We drove back home. Quiet after the presentation. [01:50:23] Speaker A: Yeah, they didn't have a lot of great answers to my question. Questions about where am I going to be working when I'm done here? So luckily, I, I dodged that bullet. Had to, had to eventually make my parents okay with it. I got the last laugh, though. I mean, I don't have any student debt or anything. And I think they realized that was not. That wouldn't have been the right path for me. [01:50:41] Speaker C: Do you recall what, like, what all in, what that might have cost at the end of it, like how much debt would you have come away with it had you have gone to somewhere like that? [01:50:51] Speaker A: So I want to say it was like including lodging and everything, it would have been 40 grand a semester. [01:51:01] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So 80 grand a year, four years. [01:51:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I know, exactly. And my parents didn't have anything saved up for that. I mean, it would have been all loans that either they were paying or I was paying. So I, it was the right call not going. But one of the things that really turned me off is I went to one of the orientations and I asked them. At the time I wanted to be a nature photographer. So I wanted to be like landscape, wildlife. My idols were Franz Lanting and Galen Rowell and guys like that. So I really wanted to be that. My vision was National Geographic. So I'm going to go to this school and I'm going to, I'm going to get hired by National Geographic right out the door. And so I asked them, I'm like, well, do you have any classes on nature photography? They're like, yeah, we have one. There's a five year waiting list though. So I would have had to be there five years just to do one nature photography class. And yeah, so that was kind of a deal breaker for me. Now, to be fair to everyone that was involved, I had a very. [01:52:07] Speaker A: I had a big misunderstanding of what being a professional photographer was and I wasn't really willing to be talked out of that at the time because I don't know if you gathered this, but I'm a bit of a stubborn individual and I have strong opinions about things. So I thought being a professional nature photographer was a thing. I thought that was a profession. I was looking at National Geographic photographers and all this kind of stuff. Turns out that's not a profession even then. It wasn't a profession. It's really not a profession now, but because National Geographic eventually laid off all their photographers, but it really wasn't a profession then. I was looking at people that were actually making money off of delivering workshops. And I didn't know that the Internet wasn't as big back then. So I didn't really have any forum to go to and really learn that. But to be honest, if there had been, I probably wouldn't have gone there. I was just dead set on this is what I want to be. Anyone can tell me it's not going to happen, but I see a couple of people doing it. There's no reason I can't be one of those couple of people. So call that arrogance, call it overconfidence, whatever. I thought I was going to be one of those. I tried to be one of those. I couldn't be one of those. So the reality. Reality put me in check. Because what I ended up doing is I didn't end up going to that college. I ended up just getting a job. I worked as a secretary. Not a secretary, but a scheduler for a sales rep guy. So I would make cold calls, and I would schedule sales calls for these guys. [01:53:49] Speaker C: I think. I think they call them setters now in the industry. [01:53:52] Speaker A: Oh, do they? Okay. [01:53:53] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Because they, like, set the appointment for the sales guy. [01:53:56] Speaker A: Oh, that makes sense. [01:53:57] Speaker C: So they're usually, like, entry level. You know, they want to be salespeople, and they're like, all right, right, you'll be a set of. And they just call. They just get rejected. [01:54:03] Speaker A: Okay. [01:54:03] Speaker C: All day, every day by cold calling people. How. I couldn't imagine you doing that. How was it? [01:54:08] Speaker A: Yeah, could you imagine me doing that? [01:54:10] Speaker C: No. [01:54:12] Speaker A: Imagine me doing that, man. [01:54:17] Speaker C: It would be. [01:54:18] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. [01:54:20] Speaker C: How did it go? [01:54:21] Speaker A: I mean, I. I was good at it. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna. I feel like I sound like a really overconfident ass in this whole interview, but I know, truly, I was genuinely good at that job. They actually had me come back and train their next people after I left. So I was good at it. But it's purely because I literally sat there and my goal was to make 100 calls a day. So I would just make 100 calls a day. And I had a little. I did the little things you do in jail, you know. [01:54:50] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [01:54:52] Speaker A: Tallies. And so I had a piece of paper and I would just tally one call. One call, one call. It was all rejection. But I was just under the idea of like, oh, you make enough calls out, somebody calls in. So I would do that. And I did pretty good. I was still living at home, and my goal was to work there only long enough to save up money so that I could leave and become a professional photographer. [01:55:18] Speaker A: So that's what I did. I worked there, I saved up money. I stayed at my parents place while all my friends were off at college in San Diego and across the country and all this kind of stuff. And they were all kind of like, you know, living a real life. But I did that so I could save money. And when I left that job and started being a professional photographer. A professional photographer. That's when reality took over and I found out what being a professional photographer isn't. Because it certainly what wasn't what I was trying to be. I was trying to sell my. My crappy sunset photos on my website, you know, and I thought I was going to sell stock photography for one, which isn't much of a thing anymore. And it's all micro stock now, which people photographers get pennies for a sale. But I was right at the tail end of when stock photography was an actual career career. So, like Art Wolf, for instance, he was one of my idols. He's nature photographer, traveled all over the world, shot a little bit for National Geographic, but he made most of his money off of stock photography. So he would go to Africa, take pictures of animals, and then he would have that on a catalog, hoping that someone would come along and say, hey, we're making a book about Africa and we need a picture of a leopard. And then they would pay him for that picture of a leopard. And back then, when photography was actually not that many people doing it, he might get a couple thousand dollars for that picture, you know. But then digital cameras hit the scene, micro stock agencies hit the scene. And suddenly there was no money in that anymore because too many people were doing it. A lot of people were working a day job, you know, as a doctor or whatever, and they had this expensive camera, and then they would go on vacation, take pictures of leopards, and then they would put it on this micro stock and like, hey, I got 25 cents for my picture of a leopard. That's pretty cool. And it's like, because they don't. They're not trying to make a living out of it. So that, that kind of hollowed out the, the market on there. So I was chasing this career that doesn't. Didn't exist anymore. And so I burned through every penny I saved in that from that job and went tens of thousands of dollars into debt trying to make it happen. Because I was again, this is where stubborn gets it, gets expensive. Like, I wasn't willing to say this is I'm wrong on all this. Like, I was just trying to make it happen. So I just kept burning through money. So I eventually reached a point where I'm like, okay, I'm either gonna have to go get a job or I gotta figure out how to make this work. And luckily, someone I was friendly with told me, he's like, just do photography lessons. Like, there's all these new cameras out there. People have a hard time doing that, so just teach them how to use a camera. And so that's what I did. And then just put an ad on Craigslist. And, you know, I had no idea what to charge. I was like 40 bucks an hour, I don't know. [01:58:37] Speaker A: $40, one hour lesson on your camera. And that kind of caught really quick because that was right around the time like the 5D came out. [01:58:49] Speaker A: And all these cameras that were suddenly affordable but very complex. [01:58:56] Speaker A: So what I found was a lot of people that had a little more money than sense were buying these cameras, thinking like, oh, this will be great for me. I love taking pictures of my kids. It's like, yeah, you like taking point and shoot pictures of your kids, but you're not going to enjoy using this camera. But they bought the camera or someone gave it to them and they needed to learn how to use it. So they would hire me and I would teach them. Shutter speeds, apertures, ISOs, autofocus modes, all that stuff. And then that kept me afloat for years. It eventually got big enough to where I had to get my own classroom because then I started doing group classes. Really? Wow. [01:59:37] Speaker C: So you went from, you worked your way from one to one. What were you doing it just like in their homes in your home or like. [01:59:43] Speaker A: Yep, yep. [01:59:43] Speaker C: Just I'll come to you, teach you. [01:59:45] Speaker A: I've been in a lot of weird places. [01:59:48] Speaker A: I bet you go into people's. I was thinking about this one the other night. I went over to deliver a lesson at this house. And I go in daytime, but it's very dark in there. Like they, they pull the shades, no lights on, and it's clear. There's kind of a lot of people living there. Like maybe eight people that aren't related living in this house. And we're gonna go do the lesson like in their living room or something. And I turn the corner and in the living room is a stripper pole. [02:00:18] Speaker A: Perfect. [02:00:18] Speaker C: Let me get my large format camera out of the car. [02:00:24] Speaker A: So I, I, yeah, I would go to people's houses. I was driving all over. If, if they didn't want, if they weren't comfortable with me going to their house, I would meet them at a coffee shop, which is always a disaster because it's just loud and all that kind of stuff. But, and then I would do field stuff too. I'd go down to the beach with them and we'd shoot the sunset or whatever. But that got so busy that I got sick of driving everywhere. So I'm like, okay, I think literally for what I'm paying on gas, that would almost pay for an office. [02:00:56] Speaker A: To do this out of. So I started looking around and I found a place that was perfect. It had like a big room that would be perfect for classroom stuff and then a smaller room in the front that I did my one on one stuff with. So I was there for nine years doing. Wow. Yeah, doing lessons and classes and everything. And it was, it was my home base. So I eventually moved out of my parents house and moved in with my girlfriend who's now my wife. And yeah, the. The classroom was good for a long time. [02:01:27] Speaker A: Very fortuitous for me. I moved out of delivering group classes right before COVID hit. [02:01:39] Speaker A: So I wasn't really dependent on it anymore. I was moving more into architectural photography. And so I was winding down classes and I stopped offering classes like right before the lockdowns and all that kind of stuff, which is, thank God. And lucky for me, the type of photography I was getting into was real estate technically, so it was considered essential. And so I was able to keep working, doing that and there was no barriers. And in fact it got a little bit easier because all the offices were empty. So I would go in and shoot a whole office building. There's no one there. So I just met with the security guard, let me into the suites and whatever. And I was doing that all through Covid. And then I would do private lessons here and there for people who were comfortable with it. But that eventually wound down to where I was getting enough of my livelihood from the photo shoots that I didn't need to do private lessons anymore either. So I stopped that, got rid of that office. That was right around the time my wife and I bought our first house, which is where I am now. And now it's. YouTube was ramping up around that time too. So that kind of also replace some of the business I was doing with private lessons and everything. So that's how I got to me doing online courses now and photo shoots and YouTube stuff, which is where I'm at. [02:03:10] Speaker B: Can I just ask, with regards to the architectural photography, the, you know, the real estate photography that you're doing now. [02:03:18] Speaker B: What'S what steered you into that particular genre as a professional, As a professional genre. [02:03:25] Speaker A: I had kind of been told. [02:03:27] Speaker A: By people at my local camera store which they were professionally oriented, so they worked with a lot of the working professionals in the area. [02:03:38] Speaker A: He kind of told me he was almost joking, but not joking, where he's like, the only place you're gonna make money in photography anymore is weddings or architecture. That's it. So choose one of those two. It was definitely ain't doing winnings. So it was partly that, but also architecture is very similar to landscape in terms of the equipment used, the techniques used and the, the personality that suits it well. And I was doing landscapes up until that point, so it kind of made sense. Found a local architectural photographer who's looking for a secondary shooter. Started working for him and still working for him now. [02:04:19] Speaker C: That's what I was gonna. Okay, so you work as a sub, like a subcontractor for him? Essentially. Yeah. Okay. Because what I wonder. That's what I was gonna find out is basically like how do you get clients for your commercial work? Because I don't see a lot of presence of that around on the Internet. So it comes through his business mostly. Or. [02:04:40] Speaker A: Yeah. So he doesn't shoot anymore. He has technically three shooters under him. I'm the one that kind of handles the, the bigger jobs because. [02:04:51] Speaker A: He trusts me to do that. So I do offices, I do industrial buildings. I do kind of the, the ones where the client really needs to make sure no one F's it up. And he kind of handles the client relations, he handles the getting more clients, sales, all that kind of stuff, which is good because I don't like doing that stuff. So I get an address, need this done by this time. I go out, I take the pictures, I process some of them. Sometimes depends on the lighting conditions and what the customer wants. But that's the arrangement we have now. So. Yeah, just this. [02:05:27] Speaker C: I don't want to dig into this too much, but you, you mentioned the 5D, the original 5D classic. I think I saw that you had the 5D classic for 10 years of faithful service or something like that and you upgraded to the 60. Solid upgrade. That was a while ago. Now. What are you shooting your professional commercial work with these days? [02:05:50] Speaker A: So I use a 5D Mark 4 still on an SLR. It's on its last leg. I'm actually. [02:05:58] Speaker A: You brought up the 6D mark or the R6 mark III? Um, I'm actually looking at buying an R6 mark II before the end of the year. Um. [02:06:06] Speaker C: Oh yeah? Yeah. [02:06:07] Speaker A: Cause it, the architectural stuff is such light lifting for modern day cameras. Like it's, you know, I'm not even auto focusing. Like it's, it's such light lifting for even the most basic camera. But the, the R6 mark II looks, looks like it would be a perfect fit for me. And it's pretty cheap right now, so I'm probably going to do that. I use all the tilt shift lenses, so 17 millimeter and 24 millimeter and stuff like that. 5D Mark IV has been good. It's a, it's a great camera, but it just, it's a lot of shutter clicks because I do everything bracketed, which I don't like doing, but it's necessary for a lot of the interior shots. [02:06:47] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:06:48] Speaker A: So yeah, it's a, it's got some miles on it. She's, she's seen some road. [02:06:54] Speaker C: Oh, sorry. [02:06:56] Speaker B: I was just gonna say that the desire to move up to mirrorless to. [02:07:00] Speaker B: To the mirrorless mount, that, that doesn't entice you? Is that because you'd rather get the most out of the gear you've got and they do the job? They're just a tool or is there another reason? [02:07:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean digital stuff, partly because digital cameras don't, they don't do a whole lot for me. Like, like film cameras do. Like. I'm super excited to get a new film camera even if I'm don't need it. But digital camera, it's kind of just a means to an end. And when it becomes a business, everything is just like a return on investment, cost benefit ratio. So it's like, okay, I could spend 2,500 bucks and I'm gonna have to get an adapter mount and all this kind of stuff. Or I could push that off six months and hope my camera doesn't die in the middle of a photo shoot. And then that's kind of the, the route I end up taking. But, but I, I am looking forward to, to switching over because the, the one thing about the 5D Mark IV that kind of drives me nuts is it doesn't have a flip out screen. And I thought that wouldn't matter at all, but I find myself in a lot of these jobs. I'm pressed up against a corner with my tripod backed all the way up trying to get the whole room and I can barely see. I definitely can't get to the viewfinder, but I can barely see the screen, so. And I also end up doing a lot of really high level stuff. So I have a tripod that goes up to like, like 7ft or something like that. I can actually stand under it. So sometimes I'll take pictures and I didn't bring my step stool, so I'm just like trying to, trying to see the screen, but if it could flip down, it'd make life a whole lot easier. So I think it'll be a nice addition to the, to the workflow. [02:08:38] Speaker C: Would you, would you use that for YouTube videos or anything as well? Or you no interest in really using that kit for you for making videos. [02:08:46] Speaker A: I find full frame cameras for video are real pain in the ass when you're trying to film yourself because the depth of field's so shallow that you have to stay in the exact same spot or do autofocus, but that can be unreliable. And it starts hunting and everything. [02:09:01] Speaker C: It's pretty reliable on the new stuff. [02:09:03] Speaker A: Oh, is it okay? It's. [02:09:04] Speaker C: It's. I mean, I don't know how. How much you'd want to trust it because, yeah, it can still do weird, weird things. But like, this is auto focusing now. I used to always like preset a camera, but now this. Like, it's. If you just set the whole thing to face detection and it can detect the back of heads and stuff too, so it doesn't get confused anymore. So it's like if you just let the whole scene. If it's just you in the scene. Yeah, yeah, it's. It's pretty good. This is the. [02:09:30] Speaker A: Okay, that's what you're videoing with right now? Yeah. Oh, wow. It's impressive. [02:09:33] Speaker C: Just because I could never get a webcam to work very well, so I. [02:09:36] Speaker A: End up using the same thing. That's. That's why I'm using my iPhone. I have this crappy webcam that just looks like garbage. And then I was going to use. I have R50V. [02:09:48] Speaker A: Whatever it is. EOS. [02:09:51] Speaker A: Ken is going to be real happy they sent me this for free. Yeah. R50V. Okay. So. So I do a lot of my video on this now. And I love this freaking camera for video. It's designed for video. Like, it has very few features for photos, but a lot of features for video. And I love it, man. It's an APS C sensor. It's like right in that sweet spot for me where it can. I don't have to worry about things going too out of focus, but I can still get blurry backgrounds when I want and everything. But yeah, the architectural stuff, I need a full frame because I'm often using this 17 millimeter tilt shift. And to get the full. The full 17, you need the. Need the full frame. So R6 is probably going to be at R6 mark II, but. [02:10:35] Speaker C: Yeah, nice. [02:10:36] Speaker A: Yeah, nice. [02:10:37] Speaker C: Surely Canon would just send you something. Come on. [02:10:39] Speaker A: I'm trying to get them to help me out, you know, so. But they're great over there, man. This. This 17 is actually a loner because my other one broke and it's in repairs right now. And I have a shoot coming up in Arizona that I got to Do. So they've been great. They're really, really good people over there at Canon. [02:10:58] Speaker C: I agree. They actually, they've worked with us a couple of times with our camera straps which has been really good like. So when they launched the R5 and the R5 Mark II in Australia, we made like a thousand limited edition camera straps to go with the first thousand cameras that got pre ordered. [02:11:15] Speaker A: Wow, that's cool. [02:11:16] Speaker C: We haven't worked with a dude. [02:11:18] Speaker B: Have you got one? [02:11:20] Speaker A: Did it have their logo on it? Yeah. Nice. Surprised the company that big would do that. That's pretty cool. Like going with a kind of niche camera strap. Seems like they always want their big huge Canon logo on it, you know. [02:11:33] Speaker B: And also with the, the OM system, the IM3 launch, Australasia. [02:11:38] Speaker A: Oh yeah. [02:11:39] Speaker B: Made a bunch of limited edition straps for that too. [02:11:42] Speaker A: Huh. That's pretty cool. [02:11:45] Speaker A: Guys got. Got good relationships down there. [02:11:48] Speaker C: Yeah. Canon Australia have been wonderful to us. [02:11:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:11:52] Speaker C: This is not the exact strap. The, the exact strap for the R5 had the Canon logo on one end and the R5 logo on the other end. But this was, this was just a sample. So it was like a padded leather. Really nice branded. [02:12:05] Speaker A: They're all handmade. [02:12:06] Speaker C: Oh yeah? Yeah. Handmade in this town where I live. [02:12:08] Speaker A: Bendigo, Victoria made a thousand of them. [02:12:11] Speaker C: Not handmade, handmade. We have some machines like. [02:12:14] Speaker A: Well no, I know but it's not, not like hand cut like cranked out of a factory in China. [02:12:19] Speaker C: No, no, no, no. They're made here. Made here in Australia. But they. Yeah, we have like, we have sewing machines. We don't use needle and thread. [02:12:28] Speaker B: I assume every, every strap has the Aussie made logo which Justin had to pay money to become a part of. [02:12:36] Speaker C: I have to pay pay every year to prove that we're made here. [02:12:39] Speaker A: Really? [02:12:40] Speaker C: I'm thinking yeah. If we want to use that particular logo. I'm thinking about just my own logo because that I, I don't even know where those tags are made, but I have a feeling they're not made in Australia. [02:12:50] Speaker C: I'm getting skeptical about where they're coming from. [02:12:55] Speaker C: This one was for the. I wonder if I can get it for the R5 Mark II. And an artist called Kent. [02:13:02] Speaker B: Oh, is this. [02:13:02] Speaker C: Can I focus on me? It wants to do my face. Kentaro Yoshida made this, this wave artwork which was, was very complex for. It's like pressed into the leather with a white foil. So it's like. [02:13:16] Speaker A: So yeah, you have to make a die or. [02:13:19] Speaker C: Yes. [02:13:19] Speaker A: I don't know what you call it but okay. Geez. [02:13:22] Speaker C: A die. Yeah, like a plate. Like a reversal plate that presses into it. [02:13:26] Speaker A: Wow. That's an undertaking. That's impressive. [02:13:30] Speaker C: Yeah, it was awesome. That Canon, like, they approached us to work with on both those projects, which is. Which is epic. And. And that then they're willing to work with. You know, they're working with this artist to make the artwork. They're working with us to try and make the product. Like, they're very. For a very big company and what is probably sometimes seen as a. [02:13:52] Speaker C: Maybe more technical of the, you know, of the camera companies. [02:13:57] Speaker A: There's. [02:13:58] Speaker C: Yeah, there's. There's a lot of good people there, and they, like, doing cool stuff like. Like that. [02:14:01] Speaker A: Yeah, that's cool. I. Yeah, it seems like they're. They're moving a little more that direction, too. It's just kind of. I. I would imagine, like, the. [02:14:10] Speaker A: Vibes are becoming a bigger ingredient to people's purchases. You know what I mean? [02:14:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:14:15] Speaker C: So that's what I'm saying about the packaging. Like. [02:14:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:14:17] Speaker C: You know, for something that might cost them an extra $5, $10 or whatever at the production level could, you know, really change the way you feel when you open the box with a new camera in it and you. You don't feel like. [02:14:28] Speaker B: Because we no longer just look for the product to do what it says. It do. It does. Yeah, we're looking for that whole experience. [02:14:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:14:34] Speaker B: Especially in this economy where we're forking out, you know, huge amounts of money for these products. It doesn't hurt to just put in a little bit of effort. [02:14:42] Speaker A: And. And all the products are so good. So it's like. [02:14:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:14:45] Speaker A: You know, it's like a compromise. You're not really. Yeah. Like, am I really getting that much more in technical specs going from this brand to this other brand? Like, everything's so good. [02:14:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:14:56] Speaker A: It's like you're not really going to buy a bad camera. So if you can add cool things like that where it's like, oh, we got this special bespoke strap that, you know, you're not going to get with any other. Any other purchase. That's pretty cool. [02:15:07] Speaker C: Yeah, it was. It's awesome. Like, when we're out and about and you see someone with one like. Yeah. [02:15:12] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. It's like a little. [02:15:14] Speaker C: I'm like, that's cool. [02:15:15] Speaker A: It's like a little secret handshake. [02:15:16] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. [02:15:18] Speaker B: A little. Little burst of pride in the chest, you know, like. [02:15:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:15:22] Speaker B: It hits you in the feels. A question that popped up earlier in. In the much earlier in our conversation today was about, I think it was about, you know, do you carry an everyday carry camera? And if so, what is it? Is it a film camera? Is it a 35? Or is it a, is it a small compact, digital? Do you have an everyday carry camera? [02:15:40] Speaker A: Much to my own dismay, I don't. [02:15:44] Speaker A: So I've talked a little bit about this on my channel, but it, I, I desperately want to be a person who photographs his life and photographs scenes and does street photography and stuff like that. I. This many years into it, I'm, when I get into it, 23. So I'm like 20, 25 years into it. I can't find, I can't get myself to do it. It's just not in my nature. Like if I'm not in photography mode, I'm not in photography mode. And if I'm in photography mode, I'm always all in on photography mode. So it really kills the vibe of being out, like just trying to enjoy life with my wife or something. So I don't, you know, I mean, like if I get obsessive about a photo I want to take, like I'm too slow, I'm too getting into it and everything and it's just not, not, not the right thing. I, I almost feel like I'm, I should have been a painter or something, but I'm not skilled enough to be a painter. Like I'm not good enough to be a painter. So I have to do photos. So I want to spend a ton of time on one photo. And I know that's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's how I, I can't find any other way to do things. Like, I'm at my happiest when it's like, okay, you have the whole evening to go take that one photo. And that's when I feel like I make my best work. So whenever I've tried to. [02:17:16] Speaker A: Do, I don't know what you'd even call that, lifestyle photos or just life photos or whatever, I, I just, I, I don't succeed at it. I appreciate the quality over quantity thing. I don't know that that's necessarily true, but. [02:17:30] Speaker A: The one time I, I do take photos much more casually and I really enjoy it and I actually really like the results is I do trips with my brothers occasionally. I have two older brothers and then we have a friend who's kind of an honorary, honorary brother because he's very close with, with all of us. So we've done these trips and I bring. [02:17:52] Speaker A: A Canon EOS1V, which is like their flagship film camera. Just before they went all digital. [02:18:01] Speaker C: I'm. I'm. I've got the one N. Okay. The one before that. And I keep looking for a V. The cheapest I've seen one here In Australia is $1200. [02:18:09] Speaker A: Are you serious? [02:18:10] Speaker C: Yeah. They've. Everyone's like. Because they're the last. You know, they're the flagship. [02:18:14] Speaker A: It's the best film. [02:18:15] Speaker C: And I'm like, but I mean, remember, 1200 of our dollars is like 50 of your dollars. I don't know. So I think it's like, what's a coffee over here? 1200 would be like 7 or 700 or 800 somewhere there like that. [02:18:29] Speaker A: So more than I would have expected. I just remember when. When all these film cameras were like, couldn't give them away. [02:18:34] Speaker C: But the secret's out because I want one of those one Vs. I've got a 51.2 L. Like the. [02:18:42] Speaker A: Oh, nice. [02:18:42] Speaker C: The EF mount. And I'm like, that's what I want to, like, cruise around with. [02:18:46] Speaker A: And it's such a great camera. Like it. It. It's so unsexy. It is the unsexiest camera you'll ever have. But it is so functional. The autofocus is great and, like, it's snappy. And the. The display and control layout is all very professionally oriented. So it's like, there's nothing in the way. It's really, really nice. I actually, I have the one V. I'm glad I held on to it, especially after hearing that. Those prices. [02:19:13] Speaker C: But let me know. [02:19:16] Speaker A: But like, so I have that. And then I have the. The power boost grip for it. [02:19:21] Speaker C: Oh, yes. [02:19:22] Speaker A: It's the one VHS, which is insane because that. It uses eight AA batteries. Oh. And can shoot like 8 frames per second or 10 frames per second or something crazy. So you burn through a roll of 36 in like four seconds. So, like, it's wild. The thing just like, it's. It's a machine gun. It's really, really cool. But I bring that on these trips with my. With my brothers, typically just with a 28 millimeter lens. And I just leave that on the whole time and shoot black and white. And there's some of my favorite photos ever. Because, of course, the photos of your life are your favorite photos ever. Which is why I. I get so mad at myself for not being the guy that takes pictures. Like, my wife and I even joke about it. We've gone on vacation. We have no pictures of us on vacation. Like, we, we don't, we both don't do that. And I like to hide behind the idea of like, well, I'm living in the moment, so I'm not taking pictures. But, but I don't know that that's really the reason. I just not the type of person to take a quick photo and like, hey, maybe it'll turn out like, I gotta, I gotta like devote my, my all 100% to this one photo of a stupid building that I'm gonna spend all night. Night shooting. So. [02:20:41] Speaker B: But I think maybe that's part of your appeal, is that you are prepared to slow down. You are prepared to stop and approach your craft and your art methodically, sometimes laboriously, but with purpose. And I think there's, there's something really beautiful about that. In a world where everywhere you look there's a camera, everyone carries one in their pocket, everyone's snapping everything, but not really anything. You are actually photographing things. You're the one that's photographing something specific, something purposeful. And I think that's what people find compelling because your videos aren't this run and gun, punch it out, you know, get the shot. It's. It's about the. And I thought about this last night, watching the one with the Corona Bro, which I'll now fondly call it from here on the Corona Bro video. It reminded me about the experience of photography. You know, we eventually got to the end outcome of you shooting that, that, you know, previously, I can't remember, was. [02:21:37] Speaker A: It a, Is it previously Denny's. [02:21:39] Speaker B: Previously Denny's and waiting for the moon to come up. And you were quite prepared just to make that. And you know, and you took some shots along the way and you chose a better one. And the one, the last one you did wasn't your favorite, it was the one before. And you know, there was that whole approach and I think that's what, what draws people to stick with your videos because it's a completely different pace than. [02:22:00] Speaker A: I appreciate that. Yeah. Sometimes I worry I'm a little, little too boring or too slow, but I have. That is one of the comments I, I tend to get the most of is they. [02:22:11] Speaker A: They like my obsession with detail, I guess. So, yeah, it's. It's the only way I can think. So it doesn't feel like anything novel to me. It kind of feels like a, a burden sometimes. But I, I think, yeah, with, with a lot of photography now, especially street photography being so popular and being such a big thing now, I think maybe there's not as Many people doing really slow, obsessive stuff. Thank you for saying. Not boring at all. Yeah. [02:22:40] Speaker C: How do I print? Wofen Rumen had actually had a good couple of questions earlier that I need to go back and track down. There were some questions earlier from them about your. About finding style and changing styles. That you know that, that you've adapted your styles through the years and how. And do you have any advice for. I think basically what they were asking. It's way back in the chat. I can't find it. For finding your own style. How photographers find their own style. [02:23:13] Speaker A: Yeah, that's, that's a, It's a tough one because I would assume everyone's journey is a little bit different on that. But. [02:23:22] Speaker A: I would say. [02:23:25] Speaker A: Just do the next thing. Whatever your, your brain is telling you to do for the next thing. Like, like, don't brush off an obsession. [02:23:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:23:36] Speaker A: Because every. Everything that I've put out on YouTube that people seem to. [02:23:44] Speaker A: Value the most from me, there was a thought before of me thinking, no one's gonna get this, so there's no reason to. To do it. But then I. Some of them, I did. Like the, the Houston's liquor video is probably the one where most people found me, at least earlier on in my YouTube. And that was a typical picture where I'm like, nobody's gonna think this photo is anything. [02:24:16] Speaker A: Worth shooting. Like, no one's gonna get it. Is was my whole thought the whole time, but I just really wanted to shoot it. And that was one of those. [02:24:27] Speaker A: Instincts that was easy to follow because when I drove past was an obsession that clicked on like, very powerfully and very instantly. So like I saw it and I was just instant need to shoot that. Like, I have to shoot that. And that is the, the part of you to trust. After that, there were all the usual thoughts of like, and no one's gonna get it and it's not gonna be worthwhile and I'll never sell a print of it. That ended up being my most selling print. But no one's gonna care about it. No one's gonna want it. No one's gonna understand it. All that came after. So it's the first knee jerk instinct that you kind of. I've learned to try and trust. Like even this previously Taco Bell thing that I'm working on, like. [02:25:14] Speaker A: When I first had that thought, driving past what used to be a Taco Bell and the idea hit me, I had that same excitement of like, okay, that that's the project to pursue. That's awesome. [02:25:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:25:25] Speaker A: And then you know, all the thoughts came afterwards. No one's really gonna get that. Is Taco Bell even everywhere? Does anyone even know what Taco Bell is? Like, who cares? Like, all that kind of stuff. But I'm glad I stuck with pursuing it because that's another one of those things where people are most excited about that book coming out or whatever. So you kind of have to trust those instincts. If you're relatively early in your photography career, you also have to accept that those instincts will be wrong a lot of the time. But you have to, you have to get them out of your system. Like, you can't let them build up because, like, a lot of the pictures I took in the beginning, which I thought, like, oh yeah, everyone's gonna love this. There are some of the hackiest photos you can imagine. I look back on it, I'm like, dude, thank God YouTube wasn't around then, because if I was sharing these on YouTube at the time, I would have gotten torn down. And rightfully so. So it's tough in the beginning because your instincts will be wrong on some things, but you just have to, to keep pursuing them and then you have to get them out of your system. So whether that's fully making like, whether that's actually pursuing it or, or just putting a period on it, like, nah, never mind. Like, just get it out, get it out of your system so that your brain can move on to the next thing. Because I have had projects like that where I get real excited about it and then I maybe try it once and it's not really feeling right, and then you have to really make that hard decision of, like, now that's done. No, and then you move on. But it takes time, takes a lot of patience because. [02:27:01] Speaker A: Who knows what that journey is going to be? And it does tend to take a. [02:27:04] Speaker B: While, but, and, and you know, you've also got a lifetime of mistakes to learn from ahead of you. [02:27:11] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. [02:27:11] Speaker B: And that can change your path as well. [02:27:13] Speaker A: Yeah, it's still evolving. I, I'm, I'm nowhere near developed, like, period, you know, I'm done. It's still evolving. And that's the excitement of it. I, I, I hope I don't reach the pinnacle of my work anytime soon. You know, I, I want more to pursue later. And that's really the fun of photography, as everybody knows, is like, the next photo. So, you know, as long as I, I have another photo to chase, then I think I'm going to continue pursuing it. So that, that pursuit of style, I, I understand the urge to try and steer it, because I do that and I have done that. But it'll find you. You just have to kind of listen. [02:28:00] Speaker A: You know, to what your instincts are. [02:28:02] Speaker B: Sage advice. [02:28:03] Speaker C: I love that advice because there's a couple of things at the moment that I want to pursue and I've been holding back on them because they cost money and now I'm like, cool. Nick said I should just go for it. I should definitely get a camera converted to full spectrum, so I can do. [02:28:20] Speaker C: Yep. Nick said if you've been thinking about, you just gotta do it. So I'll do that. [02:28:24] Speaker A: It's in your best mental health. You have to. [02:28:26] Speaker C: Exactly. He gave me permission. He said, now I just want to quickly check in. It's. We've been going for like two and a half hours now, so if you got to go, you just say the word. You're. [02:28:36] Speaker A: I actually think I will be wrapping up pretty soon here, if you don't mind. It's actually, of course, getting a little toasty in this room. You can't see my pits, but I can feel them. [02:28:46] Speaker C: We better let you go. I'm just going to quickly look what. What did. Oh, that's a big topic. [02:28:50] Speaker B: Just while you're doing that, I just want to remind everyone because we've got a lot of new viewers today. Nick's brought some of his crew with him from Orange county, perhaps. But if you are new to the Camera Life podcast, we do this twice a week, every week. We go live every Thursday morning, 9:00am Australian Eastern Time. So you'll have to do the math or the equivalent or the conversion for your time zone. And we interview an amazing photographer, we learn about their craft, their history, their inspirations and what they're working on these days. But we also go live every Monday evening, 7:30pm Australian Eastern Time, where we have our random photography show. And our random photography show again is live and we interact with our chat and we. We talk about the news, what's been happening in the photography world, what projects we're working on, and we also review your images. That's right. You can send us your images and we'll talk about them live on the show and. And pay homage to what you've achieved. But you're only going to know about those things if you firstly give us a like on this episode. It'll make Nick feel all the better for. For doing a second podcast in Australia and. And also hit subscribe because it. It helps us out a lot. And we're currently on the. On the trajectory to hit 2000. We hope to hit 2000 subs by the end of the year. But, yeah, if you. If you've. If you've got itchy trigger fingers, just hit that subscribe button. Cost nothing. Thanks. [02:30:13] Speaker A: That's right. [02:30:15] Speaker C: Good promo, Greg. All right, I've read through all my questions. I didn't get through most of them in this episode because we talked about all sorts of other cool stuff. So I can't even. They're all too big to even talk about. [02:30:25] Speaker A: I'll come back anytime. Don't you worry. [02:30:27] Speaker B: Exactly. [02:30:27] Speaker C: We might have to do it. We'll have to do a part two, but. [02:30:30] Speaker B: Oh, and just. Just a side note, I also saw a couple of calls to get Nick over for. For beef up next year. [02:30:35] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, get him over for the. [02:30:36] Speaker A: Festival for a while. [02:30:39] Speaker B: The Bright Festival Photography is this big annual photography event that's held in Victoria in regional Victoria, in the township of Bright. And they. What did we have? We had like 50 workshop instructors over three days. 50 workshop instructors. All of the industry reps from every leading brand, even Leica showed up. [02:30:57] Speaker A: And, yeah, they don't allow me in their tent. [02:31:02] Speaker C: They want to get out because I. [02:31:03] Speaker A: Can'T speak their language. [02:31:04] Speaker B: Maybe. Maybe. [02:31:05] Speaker C: Anyway, all right, last final. This real quick question. Do you have. So you went overseas on to. Was it to Spain and stuff? Yeah. So. Which was kind of like an organized trip. [02:31:20] Speaker C: You don't do a lot of international travel by the looks of it. From what I can see. You. Do you have any, like, locations on your dream travel list or is it just not something you're that into? [02:31:32] Speaker A: It's for photography. It's something I'm not that into. Which I don't know if I should feel bad about that or not or like, I'm an ugly American or something. But there's so much. There's so much I want to shoot here of just like the little. The little Podunk desert towns and all that kind of stuff. And I haven't even explored the Midwest and, you know, the Great Plains and in the US and all that kind of stuff, which I really would just love to drive around and take pictures of that. I don't. I don't think much about international travel for recreation. There's definitely places I want to go. I'd love to go to Ireland and Scotland and I really loved England when I went there with my wife and, you know, Italy. All the usuals. I'd love to see all that. I get pretty turned off by tourist. [02:32:22] Speaker A: Destinations, which I know I'm sure A lot of people do, but. [02:32:26] Speaker A: Like, I want to see those things. I would love to see the Coliseum, but I just, I don't want to deal with the crowds. So I just gotta settle for like, Google it, get a good look. [02:32:37] Speaker A: Print. [02:32:38] Speaker C: Page, frame it, Google Earth and drop the little man there and be like. [02:32:41] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, it's the same. How different is it really? But yeah, I would love to come to Australia. I mean, everyone I've talked to from there just seems like people I would get along with, you know, and it seems like the kind of culture I'd get, get along with and feel comfortable in. But New Zealand, of course, all those areas. International travel is a little tough for me because I can't sleep on planes. I'm too, I'm too big. So it's, it's how tall? I'm six. Two. [02:33:10] Speaker C: Okay. [02:33:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So it's a little cramped and it's, it's, it's kind of hard to face down a 12 hour flight. But, but yeah, it's, I know there's a lot of great things to see out there. I really want. I'm trying to buckle down and learn Spanish. It's very slow going for me, but there's a lot of like, South American countries. I, I'd love to be able to go through kind of comfortably and feel like I can, I can speak the language and not be an ugly American. That's just asking if everyone can speak my language because I'm visiting their country, you know, so I'd love to, I'd love to do something like that, but we'll see. Yeah. [02:33:49] Speaker C: Amazing. [02:33:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:33:50] Speaker C: Okay. Yeah, that was everything else. Oh, so traveling. That was the thing. So traveling for you. Like, pain in the ass. If you're going to fly with your kit. [02:33:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:33:57] Speaker C: With your, like your film kit. I saw you had that massive pelican case in those videos. [02:34:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:34:03] Speaker C: And I was like, I complained about traveling, but this is. Yeah, that's definitely next level. [02:34:07] Speaker A: It was like, the way I chose to shoot that job was just stupid. Like, that was a ridiculous camera setup to bring. But, like, I know they're hiring me for what I do on YouTube and I know how I like to shoot things, so I'm like, all right, well, I'm doing it this way. It's like I look ridiculous bringing that much, that much gear across the world, but it's how I, how I roll, I guess. [02:34:34] Speaker C: Well, the videos were great, so I think it definitely, it definitely made it and it, it was fun seeing you do it in locations that Were, you know, different to the usual. And also for a purpose where you were like, this is kind of like, I need to get these pretty shots for the client kind of thing, you know, like, that vibe was fun to watch, but thank you. I had to laugh. The, the Vandalay industry sticker on the Pelican case. [02:34:58] Speaker C: My, my brother in law actually has a commercial property filled with cool stuff that he's got a Vandelay Industry sign on the top of it so that no one, you know, people aren't like, I wonder what's in here. [02:35:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:35:12] Speaker C: And it's. A lot of people don't get the reference anymore. It's kind of lost, it's fallen away. But I'm like, I love it so much. [02:35:19] Speaker A: Yeah, we're showing our age with that reference for sure. I love that, man. That's frigging funny. [02:35:25] Speaker C: Very cool. All right, I think we'll have to. Yeah, everything. Most of my notes are still intact. We'll have to do a part two one day when you've got time. We really appreciate that. What massive, massive effort. Thanks so much. I know you're busy and you got plenty of stuff to do, so we do really appreciate it now. [02:35:39] Speaker A: Really great talking to you guys. I really, really enjoy this conversation. I don't do a lot of. A lot of my photography talk is just steered into a camera, hoping other people on the other end are responding to it. So it's really nice to have a real actual conversation with someone about it. Thank you. [02:35:53] Speaker C: Thank you. [02:35:54] Speaker B: It's been okay for us too. [02:35:56] Speaker A: Okay, good. If I can reach. Okay. Then I'm. [02:35:59] Speaker C: I'm the dream. [02:36:01] Speaker B: And just like the word mate in Australia. Okay. Has multi layers. [02:36:06] Speaker A: Okay. I'm going to assume it's the best. [02:36:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's right at the top there. Right at the top. Should have used a different word, really. [02:36:14] Speaker C: I'm going to play out our cheesy AI generated theme song which is. Which pains us because we made it as a joke and now people stinks. Expect it to be played and I'm going to read out some comments. But obviously everyone knows who you are, so they're already following you on Instagram and YouTube. But in case they're not go and do that, there's links and everything and all the stuff. And I'll be keeping an eye out for your printing course when it becomes available. [02:36:40] Speaker A: Yes, I will be shouting it from the rooftop, so don't you guys worry about. About messing up comments. [02:36:45] Speaker C: Okay. And obviously if anyone's interested, there's a Whole large format photography course manual meeting for film lightroom. There's tons of stuff on, on Nick's website, so go and check all that out. [02:36:56] Speaker A: Thank you. [02:36:57] Speaker C: Is there anything else people should know about you before we roll our crappy AI music? [02:37:01] Speaker A: No, I don't think so. Okay. Yeah, perfect. [02:37:04] Speaker B: Thank you once again for your time. Nick. It's been an absolute pleasure. We really appreciate you, you know, giving up some of your time and, and, and sending your, your, your voice and face over the airways to us. We really appreciate it. [02:37:17] Speaker A: Pleasure. Thank you guys. [02:37:18] Speaker B: But yeah, we wish you all the best and we'll be in touch. We'll talk again soon. [02:37:22] Speaker A: All right, sounds good. Happy holidays. [02:37:24] Speaker C: Happy holidays. Yeah, who we got? Lisa Lee says, thanks very much, guys. Pleasure, Nick. R D A. I don't know that one, but said thanks, David. Dan Parker says just subscribe to your channel, Nick. Great podcast, fellas. Thanks, David. David's a legend. Rodney Nicholson. Great show. Matt Palmer says six foot five and flying sucks. [02:37:44] Speaker A: Yeah, that would suck. [02:37:46] Speaker C: Dennis is coming through LA in April. He might try and track you down and do large format light painting. Anyone? Great. Great for everybody to be here. [02:37:54] Speaker A: Thank you. [02:37:55] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks everyone. We'll see you Monday night, 7:30pm until then, be safe. [02:38:00] Speaker C: Be safe. [02:38:02] Speaker A: See you guys. [02:38:03] Speaker B: Bye.