Podcasting

Shooting with film requires you to work slower and be more careful when pressing the shutter button, as you have a fixed number of exposures per roll. Additionally, film has a narrower range of ISO than digital, which impacts your approach to photography.
 
Transcript: "What are some of the differences between shooting with film and shooting digitally, and how do those impact your approach to photography? There are actually several differences between shooting film and shooting digital. Number one is that you can't chimp with film, which means you can't take a picture and then stare at the back of the camera and expect the picture that you just took to come up on an LCD screen, because film cameras don't have LCD screens, and you can't see the picture until you develop the film. So that's number one. Number two, when you're shooting film, you have X amount of exposures per roll, and depending on the format you're shooting, the roll of film could have maybe four photographs if you're shooting panoramas, or as many as 36 if you're shooting a full-frame 35mm or 36 exposure roll. So you have a fixed number of exposures you could take depending on how much film you have. That makes you be a little more careful before you press the shutter button. You can't just shoot a dozen variations of the same picture because you don't have a thousand exposures or 10,000 exposures on your memory card, as long as your batteries are holding up. You only have X amount of exposures, so you tend to work slower and think a little more carefully before you press the shutter button. ISOs, film speed, and sensor sensitivity, that's another big difference. Film is a much narrower range of ISO, depending on what you're shooting, could be ISO 25 for Kodachrome 25, or as fast as 3200, which is a Kodak 2475 recording film they used to make, where the grain was so big you could actually see it on the negative itself. So it was grainy as all hell, but it was ISO 3200. So those are the key differences between shooting digital and shooting film, and yes, it does affect your approach to photography. If you only have X amount of exposure and you've got to be a little more careful and slow down, that's a big difference right there."

Yes, having mentors is still important today because of the invaluable feedback and constructive criticism they can provide, which is something you can't get from online resources.
 
Transcript: "Do you believe having mentors is still important in the photography industry today with so many resources available online? Absolutely, and I'm not going to negate the fact that there is, you could learn anything online. YouTube has everything including brain surgery, I don't know, I'm fairly certain, and there are a lot of other resources you could tap into, but what you don't get with a lot of these how-to's and YouTube videos and everything else is feedback, one-on- one feedback from a professional whose work you respect, whose opinion you respect, somebody who has some hands-on experience in the field that you are pursuing, because I would say one-to-one feedback, constructive criticism is extremely important because we're not always honest with ourselves, we can't always see everything in our own work, you need an outside opinion from somebody, again, whose work you respect, somebody who's been in the field. This is one thing you do not get from a YouTube video, a manual, a how-to guide, or anything of that sort. So that's the value of a mentor, feedback from a human being that has some kind of a value to it."

Maintaining authenticity and integrity means being true to yourself and following the Golden Rule of treating others as you would like to be treated.
 
Transcript: "How do you maintain authenticity and integrity? I don't know if this is a trick question. So whoever posted it, not to throw shade at you, but it's fairly simple, right? You do it by your actions and your words. If you say you're gonna do something, you do it. And that's it. It's very simple. You don't jeopardize your own mission, your own values to make a buck. You don't put people down to get yourself ahead. And you should always follow the golden rule, treat others the way you'd like to be treated. It's very simple. Authenticity is being yourself, it's being your true self. And don't be afraid of that. Because for every person you think won't like who you are as a person, I guarantee you there's a whole bunch more that will. Just my two cents."

When it comes to visual storytelling, it's important to understand the story you're trying to tell and to do some research on how the subject has already been photographed. Use your camera to capture the story in a unique way that conveys the desired message.
 
Transcript: "What kind of visual storytelling makes the biggest impact? That's not an easy question to answer, but what I will say is that photography for the most part is about storytelling. So if you are telling a story, try to understand the story. I would say it's important to do a little bit of homework up front. Learn about your subject if that's possible. Learn about what's already been done, how the subject might have already been photographed as a reference point, not to copy, but maybe to do something different. But in general, think about what the goal is, what the situation is, and what kind of story you want to tell, and then use your camera to tell that story. I'm not sure if I can answer it much more accurately than that."

Creating tension in photography can be done by filling the frame with the subject, using blur and camera shake, and watching the expressions on the subjects face.
 
Transcript: "How can tension be portrayed through photography? Many ways you can do it. One of the most obvious ways I've seen it used, say in portraiture, is to get to a point where you basically fill the frame with the face of the person you're photographing rather than letting space be around it. So, I mean, that's obviously a lot of tension. Generally speaking, filling the frame with your subject, leaving just a bare amount of space around it, creates a visual tension. Strong negative-positive spaces, tight compositions, blur can sometimes infer tension, or camera shake. And then again, if you're doing portraiture, it's the expressions on your subject's face. So there's many ways of doing that. And again, a lot of it has to do with playing around and experimenting. But I would say, number one, get in close, get in tight, and in the case of portraiture, watch the eyes and watch the face."

Transcript: "If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be? Number one, learn the business end better than you did. All right, I'm gonna give that advice to any photographer. If you don't understand the business end of it, the rest of it doesn't make sense. You're just gonna be playing with cameras and taking pretty pictures and it's gonna be for yourself because you're not gonna be monetizing it. Be more interactive with other photographers is something else I would say, as well as organizations that deal with photographers. And while it's good to talk to photographers, I would say if there are organizations where you live, say for art directors, designers, advertising clubs, get to mingle with the people who are giving the assignments out and giving the work out. If you're a fine artist, make sure you're prominent in the gallery scene. Show your face, introduce yourself, mingle. Interaction is probably number one, followed by business. Maybe it's even equal. Get involved, get your face out there, get yourself out there, and understand the business end of it. And from there, it's all up to talent."