The MOOD Podcast
Stop Explaining Your Photographs - Moments of Mood, 3.9
In this Moments of Mood episode, I get into the question of whether we as photographers should explain our images or let them try and ‘speak for themselves’, why the readings you want to correct are actually a map to your photographic voice, and the two gaps every photograph has to cross, from Garry Winogrand's famous riddle to a passage in 'Art & Fear' by David Bayles and Ted Orland that reframes the distance between what you intended, what you made, and what people see. Other things I mention: The moment someone misreads your photo and the correction rises up in your chestWhy you're the one person who can't see your own work coldRepeated "wrong" readings as a pattern, not noiseWhat happens if both gaps close completely, and whether a perfect photograph would be worth looking atExplaining an image versus articulating a body of work, and why timing is the differenceMessage me, leave a comment and join in the conversation! Support the show _________________________________ Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can listen and watch full extended and ad-free episodes in my community - The MOOD Insiders - where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as meet with the community on book club weekly events, special guest features, bonus content, open forum access, free resources and so much more. Join The Community - extended episodes & bonus features https://www.mattjacob.co/insiders The App That Transformed My Art & Mind https://wakingup.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=3&aff_id=99 Website: https://themoodpodcast.com Socials: IG | X | TikTok | Threads | YouTube | @mattyj_ay
Why Your Photos Are Boring - Photographer David Chancellor Explains...
On this episode, I sat down with David Chancellor, the award-winning documentary photographer behind ‘Hunters’, ‘Handle Like Eggs’, and the Taylor Wessing Prize-winning portrait ‘Huntress with Buck’, for a conversation about the moral grey areas of documentary photography, trophy hunting, wildlife conservation. David has spent decades photographing human-wildlife coexistence across Africa, sleeping beside trophy hunters for weeks at a time, documenting leopard hunting in Namibia that was later stopped, and turning the personal cost of that work, including the collapse of his marriage, into his most intimate project. We talked about how beauty gets people to look at what they'd rather turn away from, why access matters more than gear, how a photographer builds trust over years instead of parachuting in, and his current project rewilding the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with the National Center for Wildlife. Watch this conversation and you'll understand how just one photograph can open a dialogue that could end an questionable pastime, and what it costs the person holding the camera. Other things we discussed: Getting fired from foreign exchange dealing and talking his way into photography school with "below average" workThe lion breeder who learned to see light and made the phone call behind the Taylor Wessing photoIf it pays, it stays: the brutal economics of wildlife conservationThe gamekeeper in Scotland whose hands kill deer and delivered his own sonWhether he has gone numb after decades of watching animals diePhotographing the birth, death, and compensation politics of community conservation in KenyaDavid Attenborough, his front door key, and the cost of a legendary lifeFilm versus digital, the Mamiya 7, and why he shoots one consistent formatAI, authenticity, and what photography loses when everything becomes contentFind David and his work online: https://www.davidchancellor.com/ https://www.instagram.com/chancellordavid/ Message me, leave a comment and join in the conversation! Smells Like HumansLike listening to funny friends discuss curious human behavior.Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify Support the show _________________________________ Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can listen and watch full extended and ad-free episodes in my community - The MOOD Insiders - where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as meet with the community on book club weekly events, special guest features, bonus content, open forum access, free resources and so much more. Join The Community - extended episodes & bonus features https://www.mattjacob.co/insiders The App That Transformed My Art & Mind https://wakingup.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=3&aff_id=99 Website: https://themoodpodcast.com Socials: IG | X | TikTok | Threads | YouTube | @mattyj_ay
One Photograph Is All You Get Now, and Why That's Good News for Photographers - Moments of Mood, 3.8
Attention has collapsed, and every photographer feels it. In this Moments of Mood episode, I make the case that this might be the best thing to happen to serious photography in a generation. You'll learn why the photographers who matter from here on won't be the ones who make the most, they'll be the ones who compress the best: one photograph dense enough to stop a stranger mid-scroll and earn the second look. I break down what has actually broken in visual culture (the capacity to stay, not the capacity to look), why posting more is a hiding place, and how a single ambassador image is the doorway that gets your photobook, sequence, and body of work found. ___________________________ Message me, leave a comment and join in the conversation! Support the show _________________________________ Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can listen and watch full extended and ad-free episodes in my community - The MOOD Insiders - where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as meet with the community on book club weekly events, special guest features, bonus content, open forum access, free resources and so much more. Join The Community - extended episodes & bonus features https://www.mattjacob.co/insiders The App That Transformed My Art & Mind https://wakingup.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=3&aff_id=99 Website: https://themoodpodcast.com Socials: IG | X | TikTok | Threads | YouTube | @mattyj_ay
Odette England Answers Every Photographer's Worst Fear, E126
Odette England makes her photographs and then damages them, and this conversation is about why that is the most honest thing she has ever done with her voice. Odette is an Australian artist, writer and photography professor at Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University, whose latest book Isn't X Beautiful is an autobiographical reckoning with family, memory and the limits of what a photograph can hold. We talk about growing up on a 200 acre dairy farm in rural South Australia where her father made Polaroid portraits of newborn calves for their birth certificates and her mother typed captions into family albums, and how those 2 modes of picture keeping shaped everything she has made since. We go into her definition of beauty, which is broken, rusty and forlorn rather than pretty, the year she asked her elderly parents to walk their lost farm with her negatives strapped to the soles of their shoes, why she believes photography is drenched in want, and what writing gives her that photography cannot. Odette talks openly about doubt, about being the least confident person in her own practice, about the drawers of failed work she now calls her box of potentials, and about the daily sentence habit that turned into something she never intended. We finish inside the critique room, on the questions she asks photographers who bring her work they cannot yet explain. Other things we discussed: Being refused entry to her school darkroom because she was a girlBeing the only woman in her classWhy the letter X sits at the centre of her book, and why the title ends in an exclamation markThe 170 English words for the act of seeingThe folly of memory, wrong captions, and choosing to remember the fictionHer image-based retelling of Susan Sontag's On PhotographyWhy she thinks moving forward is not always the right next stepWhat she sees in students of every age that worries her mostFind Odette on her website and Instagram: https://www.odetteengland.com https://www.instagram.com/odetteengland ___________________________________________________ Message me, leave a comment and join in the conversation! Smells Like HumansLike listening to funny friends discuss curious human behavior.Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify Support the show _________________________________ Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can listen and watch full extended and ad-free episodes in my community - The MOOD Insiders - where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as meet with the community on book club weekly events, special guest features, bonus content, open forum access, free resources and so much more. Join The Community - extended episodes & bonus features https://www.mattjacob.co/insiders The App That Transformed My Art & Mind https://wakingup.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=3&aff_id=99 Website: https://themoodpodcast.com Socials: IG | X | TikTok | Threads | YouTube | @mattyj_ay
How To Find Your Voice Without Building a Signature Style - Moments of Mood, 3.7
In this Moments of Mood episode I sit with a single photograph from my own archive, one I made by accident in under ten seconds, and use it to unpack an idea Cristina Mittermeier gave me: that the photographer is not a messenger but a membrane, a semi-permeable skin whose job is to let a conversation pass between the subject and the stranger who will one day stand in front of the print. I look at why the pressure to have a signature style is muting your photography, why your creative voice is not a possession you transmit but the shape of what you let through, and how ego, not lack of talent, is what fragments an emerging photographer's work. There's a version of your portfolio where every frame is competent, consistent, technically strong, and somehow says nothing, and if you already know which images I mean, this episode is about why that happens and what your voice actually is instead. I also get into the book launch that turned Cristina from marine biologist into one of the most seen photographers alive, why technically flawless photographs can be strangely silent, the unnamed photographer whose prints sell the man rather than the animal, the division of labor between vanishing inside the frame and showing up loudly outside it, why a style can be copied by a preset pack while permeability cannot, and a one-frame practice to try this week. ______________________________ Message me, leave a comment and join in the conversation! Support the show _________________________________ Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can listen and watch full extended and ad-free episodes in my community - The MOOD Insiders - where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as meet with the community on book club weekly events, special guest features, bonus content, open forum access, free resources and so much more. Join The Community - extended episodes & bonus features https://www.mattjacob.co/insiders The App That Transformed My Art & Mind https://wakingup.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=3&aff_id=99 Website: https://themoodpodcast.com Socials: IG | X | TikTok | Threads | YouTube | @mattyj_ay
Trent Davis Bailey: Every Photographer Hits The Wrong Notes Before Finding Their Voice, E124
Trent Davis Bailey spent 7 years photographing a remote farming valley in Colorado, convinced he was making documentary work. He wasn't. The pictures knew before he did: he was searching for the family he'd lost to a twenty-year estrangement, and by the end of The North Fork he had found his aunt, his cousins, and the woman who became his wife. Then he turned the camera toward something far harder. His new photobook Son Pictures, published by Chose Commune, reckons with the crash of United Flight 232, the disaster that killed his mother when he was 3 years old, through his own photographs, family snapshots, newspaper archives, and the eerily premonitory artworks his mother made as a girl, including a drawing of a plane falling from the sky, made decades before she boarded one. This is a conversation for any photographer who has ever suspected their work is about something they haven't admitted yet. We follow how a photography project becomes a mirror, how a photobook gets edited and sequenced when your heart is too close to the pictures, and how grief, memory and image-making feed each other over a decade of work. Other things we discussed: Being tied to a tree for his first ever photographs, and why he's glad the negatives were destroyedThe camera as a passport for a shy kid, and photography as a search for belongingWhy he hides many of his subjects' faces, and the 4-foot constraint that shaped The North ForkEditing 60 pictures down to 46 with Trespasser, and handing his grief to the right publisherRebecca Solnit's essay, walking as a way of seeing, and why "capture" is the wrong word for photographyWatching a Hollywood reenactment of the crash at 7 years old, and how cinema colonises memoryBecoming a father, and the New York Times op-ed that revealed what Son Pictures was really aboutHumor as an antidote to grief, and protecting play inside the heaviest workRobert Adams, reusing photographs across books, and what follows a decade-long project Find Trent’s work here: https://trentdavisbailey.com https://www.instagram.com/trentdavisbailey/ ______________________________________________________ Message me, leave a comment and join in the conversation! Smells Like HumansLike listening to funny friends discuss curious human behavior.Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify Support the show _________________________________ Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can listen and watch full extended and ad-free episodes in my community - The MOOD Insiders - where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as meet with the community on book club weekly events, special guest features, bonus content, open forum access, free resources and so much more. Join The Community - extended episodes & bonus features https://www.mattjacob.co/insiders The App That Transformed My Art & Mind https://wakingup.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=3&aff_id=99 Website: https://themoodpodcast.com Socials: IG | X | TikTok | Threads | YouTube | @mattyj_ay
The One Skill That Actually Makes Photography Beautiful (It's Not Composition) - Moments of Mood, 3.6
In this episode you'll discover why beauty in photography is made by your attention, not found in your subjects, and how reading your own form reveals the photographic voice you've been searching for elsewhere. In this Moments of Mood, I sit with one idea from my recent conversation with photographer and writer Tim Carpenter: that beauty in a photograph is form, not subject matter. Drawing on Robert Adams' book ‘Beauty in Photography’ and Tim's book ‘To Photograph Is to Learn How to Die’, I unpack what form actually is, why we have a bodily response to it, and how the way you meet the world is pressed invisibly into every frame you make. If you're an emerging photographer struggling to find your voice or make cohesive work, this one reframes where beauty, and your signature, actually live. Other things we discussed: Why photographs of beautiful subjects can still feel emptyTim Carpenter's confession about being subject matter driven early in his careerRobert Adams on form as an answer to the fear that life is chaosWhy the most moving photographs hold together barely, not perfectlyHow your body decides the photograph before you doMindfulness and attention as trainable photographic skillsA practical assignment for photographing the most ordinary place in your life_______________________________________ Message me, leave a comment and join in the conversation! Support the show _________________________________ Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can listen and watch full extended and ad-free episodes in my community - The MOOD Insiders - where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as meet with the community on book club weekly events, special guest features, bonus content, open forum access, free resources and so much more. Join The Community - extended episodes & bonus features https://www.mattjacob.co/insiders The App That Transformed My Art & Mind https://wakingup.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=3&aff_id=99 Website: https://themoodpodcast.com Socials: IG | X | TikTok | Threads | YouTube | @mattyj_ay
The Inner Voice That Stops You Taking the Photo And Lies to Every Photographer, with Rory King - E122
If you have ever felt technically capable but creatively lost, this conversation shows you how one photographer turned a decade of pictures, and the hardest years of his life, into a body of work that is unmistakably his own. In this episode I sit down with Rory King, an Australian photographer who works in black and white, prints by hand in the darkroom, and turned 10 years of images into his photobook 'Gumsucker', published by Charcoal Press after he won the 2023 Charcoal Publishing Prize at the Chico Review. We talk about how photography found him, the darkroom as an emotional practice, his mental health struggles that nearly ended his life, and what it actually takes to find your own photographic voice. Other things we discussed: Why he refuses to scan film and prints everything by handPhotographing the same friends for over 10 yearsHanding close to 2,000 scans to his publisher and not seeing Gumsucker until years laterThe bushrangers and Ned Kelly project he first presented at ChicoWhether the photography and publishing world is elitist and gatekeptHow to share your work and find communityThe role of family, friends, and sad music in his recoveryMomentum, and why taking the picture matters more than the picture itself Rory's links: www.roryking.net www.instagram.com/kingroary _____________________________________ Message me, leave a comment and join in the conversation! Smells Like HumansLike listening to funny friends discuss curious human behavior.Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify Support the show _________________________________ Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can listen and watch full extended and ad-free episodes in my community - The MOOD Insiders - where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as meet with the community on book club weekly events, special guest features, bonus content, open forum access, free resources and so much more. Join The Community - extended episodes & bonus features https://www.mattjacob.co/insiders The App That Transformed My Art & Mind https://wakingup.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=3&aff_id=99 Website: https://themoodpodcast.com Socials: IG | X | TikTok | Threads | YouTube | @mattyj_ay
What Koudelka's Photos Show Photographers About Finding Their Voice in the Age of AI - Moments of Mood, 3.5
In this solo episode of Moments of Mood, you'll learn why the flood of AI images is about to make real, human photography more valuable, not less, and how to find the voice that's unmistakably yours. I break down what AI really means for emerging photographers, starting with VSCO's "your eye can't be generated" campaign and the paradox that the same company also builds the AI tools and sells the reassurance back to you. Drawing on Josef Koudelka's legendary photographs, the "revenge of the humanities," and his own work in a disappearing place, I argue that the crisis was/is never AI, it was handing the verdict on your work to everything outside yourself, and that scarcity, taste, and lived experience are about to become a photographer's most valuable assets. Other touch points in this commentary: Why your photography voice feels fragmented, and the real reason behind itThe 2am fear that your eye might be "ordinary"Why a machine can render anything but can't be the witnessWhat an AI company founder says about the value of the humanitiesThe single reflection to find the one photograph that's truly yours_________________________________ Message me, leave a comment and join in the conversation! Support the show _________________________________ Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can listen and watch full extended and ad-free episodes in my community - The MOOD Insiders - where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as meet with the community on book club weekly events, special guest features, bonus content, open forum access, free resources and so much more. Join The Community - extended episodes & bonus features https://www.mattjacob.co/insiders The App That Transformed My Art & Mind https://wakingup.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=3&aff_id=99 Website: https://themoodpodcast.com Socials: IG | X | TikTok | Threads | YouTube | @mattyj_ay
Why Photographer Ridwan Didot Asks Every Artist "What's Wrong With You?", E120
In this episode you'll learn how to tell whether your photography is actually art, why chasing technical perfection is holding your work back, and how to develop a photographic voice that's unmistakably your own. This week Matt chats with Ridwan Didot, a fine art documentary and wedding photographer from Indonesia who runs the studio Native Visual and approaches commercial work with the eye and patience of a documentarian. We get into one of the oldest debates in photography, whether there's such a thing as photography that is art and photography that isn't, and where that line actually sits. Ridwan shares why a photograph that still works in 50 years matters more than one that just looks good today, how 6 years photographing his own grandparents trained his eye more than any client job, and why he believes copying another photographer, or even copying your own past work, is genuinely impossible. This is a conversation about intention, sensitivity, function over aesthetics, and the slow work of finding a creative voice that's truly yours. Other things we discussed: Why your mother's old family photos might teach you more than any workshopThe "demolition" theory of creativity: learning to construct a photo so you can destroy itWhat Rick Rubin's The Creative Act gets right about making work without needing approvalHow Diane Arbus reframed the relationship between the subject and the photographWhy insecurity, used honestly, can be a tool rather than a weaknessAlfred Adler, the "neutral position", and how psychology shapes the photographerThe Photographer's Playbook and the danger of photographing feelings badlyWhy the love and care you put into a frame is visible in the final imageThe one question Ridwan asks every artist he meetsRidwan's profile: https://www.instagram.com/ridwandidot/ ___________________________ Message me, leave a comment and join in the conversation! Smells Like HumansLike listening to funny friends discuss curious human behavior.Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify Support the show _________________________________ Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can listen and watch full extended and ad-free episodes in my community - The MOOD Insiders - where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as meet with the community on book club weekly events, special guest features, bonus content, open forum access, free resources and so much more. Join The Community - extended episodes & bonus features https://www.mattjacob.co/insiders The App That Transformed My Art & Mind https://wakingup.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=3&aff_id=99 Website: https://themoodpodcast.com Socials: IG | X | TikTok | Threads | YouTube | @mattyj_ay
Your Body Decides the Photograph Before You Do - Photographer Tim Carpenter, E119
Matt sits down with photographer, writer, and educator Tim Carpenter, author of 'To Photograph Is to Learn How to Die' and photobooks such as 'Local Objects', 'Little' and 'Christmas Day, Bucks Pond Road', for a deep conversation on the philosophy beneath the photographic image. In this episode you will learn a way to understand why the form of a photograph, not its subject, is where its meaning and beauty actually live, and how working with a camera can teach you to make peace with a world that will never bend to your wishes. We explore the 'broken self' and the gap between the real and the ideal, why form is everything that is not in front of the camera, the difference between the depicted and the detected, how the body and the camera move through the world as a single instrument, why beauty in a photograph is a fleeting moment of equilibrium, and how a photographer can build a meaningful body of work and a real audience without chasing scale. Other things we discussed: Why great art resists interpretation, and the ethics of meeting a subject as something singularThe exposure test that reveals whether you truly care about formHow Tim moved from being subject-matter driven to understanding structureReading his own emotional distance in the photographs of Local ObjectsThe pinned butterfly problem in portrait photographyWhat Robert Adams wrote in a two-page handwritten letterWhy Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes may not help working photographersThe anti-solipsism machine, and how the camera refuses your projectionsThe loss behind Bucks Pond Road and the books that became a loose trilogyWhy you do not need a big audience to make work that mattersTim's links: Website: https://www.timcarpenterphotography.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/timcarpenter ___________________ Message me, leave a comment and join in the conversation! Smells Like HumansLike listening to funny friends discuss curious human behavior.Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify Support the show _________________________________ Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can listen and watch full extended and ad-free episodes in my community - The MOOD Insiders - where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as meet with the community on book club weekly events, special guest features, bonus content, open forum access, free resources and so much more. Join The Community - extended episodes & bonus features https://www.mattjacob.co/insiders The App That Transformed My Art & Mind https://wakingup.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=3&aff_id=99 Website: https://themoodpodcast.com Socials: IG | X | TikTok | Threads | YouTube | @mattyj_ay
Zahra Ciardi - The True Self, Limiting Beliefs & Why Photographers Crave Validation, E118
Matt talks with psychologist Zahra Ciardi, founder of Ascendant Bali, to explore the inner life of the creative person: why so many photographers feel their work isn't truly theirs, the limiting beliefs that keep artists stuck, and how to put your work into the world without being ruled by validation. By the end of this episode you'll understand why your photography stops feeling like yours, and what it takes to create from your true self instead of your need to be seen. Zahra works in trauma recovery and peak performance, and she breaks down the psychology of high achievers, the anatomy of avoidance, the inner critic, and how childhood shapes the way we create as adults. Other things discussed: The "bus" model of the self and why the inner critic ends up drivingHighly sensitive people and why creatives feel everything so intenselyOver-diagnosis, self-diagnosis, and the bigger problem of under-treatmentSelf-neutrality as the realistic first step before self-loveGraded exposure for photographers afraid to share their workUsing social media intentionally instead of being used by itWhether healing costs you your creative edgeHow childhood memory is stored in the body, not just the mindThe single values exercise Zahra says works every time Zahra's links: www.ascendantbali.com www.zahraciardi.com https://www.instagram.com/zahra_ciardi/ ____________________ Message me, leave a comment and join in the conversation! Smells Like HumansLike listening to funny friends discuss curious human behavior.Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify Support the show _________________________________ Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can listen and watch full extended and ad-free episodes in my community - The MOOD Insiders - where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as meet with the community on book club weekly events, special guest features, bonus content, open forum access, free resources and so much more. Join The Community - extended episodes & bonus features https://www.mattjacob.co/insiders The App That Transformed My Art & Mind https://wakingup.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=3&aff_id=99 Website: https://themoodpodcast.com Socials: IG | X | TikTok | Threads | YouTube | @mattyj_ay
Cristina Mittermeier Explains Why Being A Good Photographer Isn't Enough Anymore, E117
Cristina Mittermeier is a National Geographic photographer, co-founder of SeaLegacy, and author of "Hope." Her work has been featured in National Geographic's series "Photographer" and in publications around the world. Cristinais the photographer who coined the term "conservation photography," co-founded SeaLegacy, and made the starving polar bear image seen by an estimated 2.5 billion people. In this episode Matt and Cristina discuss how to find your photographic voice that actually means something, why a point of view separates an artist from a craftsman, and the one principle Cristina has built her life around: to show up. - Join the Mood Insiders for ad-free extended episodes, monthly masterclasses, the weekly book club, and much more (link in notes below) - Other things you will take away from this episode: The "glorious amateur" and why expertise is not a prerequisite for meaningful photographyThe full story behind the starving polar bear photograph and the backlash that followedHow the social media algorithm punishes beautiful and important photographyThe idea of the photographer as a "membrane" rather than a messengerWhy storytelling now matters more than the photograph itself"Enoughness" as a personal answer to consumerismBuilding a real portfolio of physical work instead of living on InstagramA personal handbook of ethics for photographersWhy AI will make human-made photography more valuable, not lessLegacy, ego, and shedding the need to be exceptionalSeaLegacy and the next decade of conservation photographyPractical advice for emerging photographers starting out today____ Cristina’s platforms: Website - https://www.cristinamittermeier.com/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mitty/ SeaLegacy - https://www.sealegacy.org/ ____ Message me, leave a comment and join in the conversation! Smells Like HumansLike listening to funny friends discuss curious human behavior.Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify Support the show _________________________________ Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can listen and watch full extended and ad-free episodes in my community - The MOOD Insiders - where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as meet with the community on book club weekly events, special guest features, bonus content, open forum access, free resources and so much more. Join The Community - extended episodes & bonus features https://www.mattjacob.co/insiders The App That Transformed My Art & Mind https://wakingup.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=3&aff_id=99 Website: https://themoodpodcast.com Socials: IG | X | TikTok | Threads | YouTube | @mattyj_ay
The One Question That Helped Rich-Joseph Facun Find His Photographic Voice, E116
In this episode, Matt sits down with Rich-Joseph Facun, a celebrated American documentary photographer, former photojournalist of 15 years, and founder of the independent publishing imprint Liars Corner. In this conversation we discuss his three monographs: Black Diamonds, Little Cities, and 1804, the ethics of street and portrait photography, photographing strangers in Trump-era Appalachia, walking away from photojournalism, finding your photographic voice, and why the global photo book industry urgently needs more marginalised and Indigenous voices. Other things we discussed: Street portraiture, approaching strangers, and consent in documentary photographyGrowing up in a Southern Baptist military family and door-to-door evangelism as training for portrait workPhotographing Trump-supporting Appalachia as a person of colour with a trans childThe viral portrait of a stranger with a damaged forehead tattoo crying on the streetQuitting photojournalism after 15 years and the identity crisis that followedWhy he stopped using Rembrandt lighting and the decisive moment in his portrait workHow to find your photographic voice after mastering the craftSelf-publishing a photo book vs pitching to independent publishersThe making of Black Diamonds, Little Cities, and 1804Launching Liars Corner as an Indigenous-owned photo book imprint in AppalachiaElitism, gatekeeping, and barriers to entry inside the global photo book publishing industryMentoring emerging documentary photographers and funding their first monographsWhy awards, accolades, and staff photographer positions stopped matteringRich-Joseph Facun Instagram: https://instagram.com/facun Website: https://facun.com Imprint: https://liarscorner.press ____________________________________ Message me, leave a comment and join in the conversation! Smells Like HumansLike listening to funny friends discuss curious human behavior.Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify Support the show _________________________________ Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can listen and watch full extended and ad-free episodes in my community - The MOOD Insiders - where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as meet with the community on book club weekly events, special guest features, bonus content, open forum access, free resources and so much more. Join The Community - extended episodes & bonus features https://www.mattjacob.co/insiders The App That Transformed My Art & Mind https://wakingup.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=3&aff_id=99 Website: https://themoodpodcast.com Socials: IG | X | TikTok | Threads | YouTube | @mattyj_ay
Pricing, Prestige & The Business Of Photography - Miriam Schulman, E115
In this episode, Matt sits down with Miriam Schulman, professional artist, art business coach, host of the Inspiration Place podcast, and bestselling author of Artpreneur (HarperCollins). Miriam left Wall Street after 9/11 to build a six-figure art business and now teaches photographers, painters, and visual artists how to price their work, sell art online, attract collectors, and build a sustainable photography business without relying on social media. In this conversation we cover photography pricing strategies, how to sell prints at higher prices, the psychology behind luxury art buyers, why charm pricing kills photography sales, how photographers can find art collectors, the truth about Instagram engagement rates for artists, AI's impact on professional photography, and how to transition from hobbyist photographer to full-time professional. So if you are learning how to make money as a photographer, how to price photography prints, or how to build a photography business in 2026, this episode delivers the frameworks Miriam uses with her six-figure photography and art coaching clients. Other things we discussed: How to price photography prints using prestige pricing instead of charm pricingThe belief triad every photographer needs to sell high-ticket printsSignal excavation: how photographers find their unique artistic voiceHow to build an email list as a photographer (and why it beats Instagram)The $40 champagne pricing study and what it means for photography salesAI and photography: why photographers face more risk than paintersLinkedIn for photographers: the most underused platform for selling artHow to use local press and PR to sell photography printsThe five biggest mistakes photographers make when pricing their workHow to identify a production problem vs a pricing problem in your photography businessWhy marketing matters most when you believe your photography mattersThe wishy-washy pricing mistake that loses photographers paid bookings Find Miriam and everything she offers on her website: https://www.schulmanart.com/ _______________________________________ Message me, leave a comment and join in the conversation! Smells Like HumansLike listening to funny friends discuss curious human behavior.Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify Support the show _________________________________ Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can listen and watch full extended and ad-free episodes in my community - The MOOD Insiders - where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as meet with the community on book club weekly events, special guest features, bonus content, open forum access, free resources and so much more. Join The Community - extended episodes & bonus features https://www.mattjacob.co/insiders The App That Transformed My Art & Mind https://wakingup.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=3&aff_id=99 Website: https://themoodpodcast.com Socials: IG | X | TikTok | Threads | YouTube | @mattyj_ay
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