The Nerdy Photographer Podcast

It's Halloween on the Nerdy Photographer Podcast, which means it's time for this year's photography horror story. A photographer editing alone in his locked studio keeps hearing a shutter click. But where is it coming from?

Full description:

Our annual Halloween tradition is back. This year's story is "Until It Clicks".

Chance is up against the deadline of his career: a big fashion campaign due in the morning. He's alone in the studio, editing late into the night, when he starts hearing a sound he knows better than any other. The click of a camera shutter. The door is locked. His studio manager went home hours ago. And his second camera, sitting across the room, is switched off.

Turn down the lights, put on your headphones, and listen if you dare.

About The Podcast

The Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's wedding work at https://fatchett.com or his non-wedding work at https://caseyfatchettphotography.com

If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any other episodes, OR if you would like to ask a photography related question or have ideas for a topic for a future episode, please reach out to us at https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact

This is a spooky-season re-release. Casey welcomes Dr. Emily Zarka, host of Monstrum on PBS Digital's Storyed channel, for a conversation about monster folklore, spirit photography, and what our desire to document the supernatural says about us.

In this episode:

• The Twitter debate that started it all: why (and whether) vampires can be photographed — soul folklore vs. silver folklore
• Working through the "photographability" of werewolves, mummies, zombies, and ghosts based on soul mythology
• The history of 1860s spirit photography and the spiritualist movement
• William Mumler, the photographer who faked ghostly portraits of deceased loved ones — and the trial where he got away with it
• P.T. Barnum's staged "ghost photo" of himself with Lincoln's spirit, made to expose the trend as fraud
• Why spirit photography took hold after mass wartime loss, and what it offered grieving families
• What monster folklore more broadly reveals about how humans process real horror and cruelty
• Global vampire folklore and why Western "Dracula-style" vampires are just one version among many
• Dr. Zarka's favorite monster (the undead), favorite monster movie (The Mist), and favorite non-traditional monster (the Manananggal, from Filipino folklore)

Useless information segment:

How Lazzaro Spallanzani proved in 1793 that bats navigate by sound rather than sight — by blindfolding bats first, then plugging their ears, and watching which one made them start bumping into things.

Guest: Dr. Emily Zarka, host of Monstrum (PBS Digital / Storyed) — watch on YouTube or at PBS.org

Episode Promo: Kit - https://partners.kit.com/nerdy

Support The Nerdy Photographer

• Sign Up for The Power Up - https://nerdyphotographer.com/newsletter
• Get some artwork from the print shop - https://art.caseyfphoto.com
• Buy some Nerdy Photographer Merch - https://nerdyphoto.dashery.com
• Use our link to buy new gear from Adorama - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/adorama
• Use our link to buy used gear from KEH - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/keh
• Follow along with us on social media @thenerdyphoto

About The Podcast

The Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's wedding work at https://fatchett.com or his non-wedding work at https://caseyfatchettphotography.com

If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any other episodes, OR if you would like to ask a photography related question or have ideas for a topic for a future episode, please reach out to us at https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact

In this episode, Casey Fatchett talks with nature and landscape photographer Vicky Thompson about her journey from a teenage film photographer to a respected voice in her photography community — and about the recurring experience of being underestimated, doubted, or outright told she was in the wrong place because of what she looks like.

In this episode:

• Vicky's start in photography at 13, using babysitting money to buy her first film camera
• How Gordon Parks' civil-rights-era photography shaped her eye and her values
• The role Instagram played in leveling up her technical skills
• Being mistaken for a guest — or told outright she was "not supposed to be here" — while working as the hired photographer
• Why she shows up prepared to give "150%" and how that mindset has shaped her career
• How social media has helped shift assumptions about who photographers are
• Preparing her daughter, a college sports photographer, for the realities of the industry
• The resurgence of film and instant cameras among younger photographers
• Why Vicky sees photography as a community, not a competition

Episode Promos

• Nerdy Photographer Contract Templates - https://nerdyphotographer.com/product-category/contracts/
• On1 Software - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/on1/
• Format, websites for creatives - https://format.partnerlinks.io/nerdy
• Retouch4Me - https://retouch4.me/ - remember to use promo code "nerdy" to get 20% off

About My Guest

Vicky Thompson is a nature and landscape photographer based in Northern California

"I have been featured in every local news channel in Sacramento, as well as local magazines like Be Local Sacramento. I have been designated as one of 10 "must follow" black woman photographers by Focus Camera. I helped to curate the first ever "photography month sacramento" with a gallery exhibition of many local photographers, entitled "Sacramento after dark".

Website: https://photosbyvicky.net

Instagram: https://instagram.com/photos.by.Vicky

About The Podcast

The Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's wedding work at https://fatchett.com or his non-wedding work at https://caseyfatchettphotography.com

If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any other episodes, OR if you would like to ask a photography related question or have ideas for a topic for a future episode, please reach out to us at https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact

This is a spooky-season re-release of episode 76. Casey welcomes back photographer Jeremy Harris to react to scary and unexplained stories submitted by photographers around the world — some paranormal, some very much not, all genuinely unsettling.

Stories covered in this episode:

• A quiet night shoot on a bridge, and the fatal mugging that happened roughly five minutes after the photographer left
• Solo exploring the haunted tunnels of Sloss Furnace in Birmingham, Alabama — cold chills, a moving shadow, and a self-professed skeptic who still ran
• A giggling child's voice coming from an empty graveyard while waiting to shoot the Milky Way
• A "haunted" county jail where cameras glitch and inmates scream at midnight — solved (mostly) by over-recorded VHS tape and a broken AC unit
• Finding two brand-new (probably stolen) motorcycles inside an abandoned cottage
• A rising tide that cuts off a photographer's escape route in 15 minutes flat, ending in a Coast Guard rescue
• A dead crow, a "fear boner," and a 150-year-abandoned power plant
• A high schooler stranded in dense fog after dark, terrified by what turns out to be a Highland cow
• New Zealand possums mistaken for a mythical panther mid-hike
• Exploring the real history behind New Jersey's Overbrook Asylum and its connection to unnecessary lobotomies
• The short history of "spirit photography" — double exposures and long exposures that convinced 19th-century audiences they'd captured ghosts

Support The Nerdy Photographer

• Sign Up for The Power Up - https://nerdyphotographer.com/newsletter
• Get some artwork from the print shop - https://art.caseyfphoto.com
• Buy some Nerdy Photographer Merch - https://nerdyphoto.dashery.com
• Use our link to buy new gear from Adorama - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/adorama
• Use our link to buy used gear from KEH - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/keh
• Follow along with us on social media @thenerdyphoto

About The Podcast

The Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's wedding work at https://fatchett.com or his non-wedding work at https://caseyfatchettphotography.com

If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any other episodes, OR if you would like to ask a photography related question or have ideas for a topic for a future episode, please reach out to us at https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact

Street and portrait photographer Tom Hoops joins us to talk about his unplanned path into photography, why he builds his portrait style around rawness instead of polish, and why he founded The Underexposed Community.

In this episode:

• Tom's origin story: picking up a camera to shoot reference photos for paintings — and never going back to painting
• The early Flickr community (including photographers like Jack Davidson and Brett Walker) that shaped his eye
• Why he tells photographers starting out to avoid Instagram, other photographers' work, and how-to books until they've built their own body of work
• His case against the "corporate headshot" look and what he's chasing instead
• Shooting underexposed on purpose, working on location, and why he sets his lights once and then forgets about them
• What actually separates working photographers from hobbyists (hint: it's not the gear)
• The industry problem of shrinking access time on assignments — and what publishers get wrong
• Why he started The Underexposed Community and what it offers photographers looking for real peer connection

Timestamps:

• 3:33 — Introduction and dice-breaker question
• 4:41 — Tom's background and path into photography
• 9:09 — The moment he knew photography was his profession
• 10:54 — Looking back at early work, and the fashion photography learning curve
• 16:52 — Why he tells new photographers to avoid studying other photographers early on
• 23:22 — Why lighting setups matter less than people think
• 25:05 — Rejecting the corporate headshot look; shooting subjects "powerful" instead of polished
• 30:55 — Where the "raw" feel actually comes from: direction, location, editing
• 39:01 — Advice on turning photography into a full-time living
• 44:15 — Founding The Underexposed Community
• 56:55 — Tom's advice to photographers just starting out (or to his younger self)

Episode Promos

• Nerdy Photographer Contract Templates - https://nerdyphotographer.com/product-category/contracts/
• On1 Software - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/on1/
• Format, websites for creatives - https://format.partnerlinks.io/nerdy
• Retouch4Me - https://retouch4.me/ - remember to use promo code "nerdy" to get 20% off

About My Guest

Tom Hoops is a portrait and fashion photographer known for his distinctive, emotive style and ability to capture raw human character. Working between studio and location, Tom's images blend strong composition with a cinematic use of light, creating work that feels both contemporary and timeless.

His photography has been featured internationally, and he is recognised for his intuitive approach to directing subjects and uncovering authentic, powerful moments.

Tom is also the founder of Wild Dogs in Paris, Wild Dogs Editions and Underexposed.

• The Underexposed Community: https://underexposedcommunity.com
• Website: https://tomhoops.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/tomhoops

About The Podcast

The Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's work at https://caseyfphoto.com

If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any other episodes, OR if you would like to ask a photography related question or have ideas for a topic for a future episode, please reach out to us at https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact

Photography culture treats technical perfection as the goal and any deviation from it as failure. This episode argues that some of the medium's most resonant images come from exactly the opposite — and explores where the line is between a mistake worth fixing and a "failure" worth keeping.

In this episode:

• The wedding reception story: a dead flash transmitter, a dozen unusable frames, and the one accidental low-light portrait that became a favorite
• Why photography's fear of technical failure is a holdover from the film era's real economic costs — and why that instinct outlived its original reason
• How editing tools (noise reduction, sharpening, highlight recovery) reinforce the assumption that all technical deviation is a problem to solve
• The aesthetics of error: lens flare, film grain, vignetting, and uncorrected chromatic aberration as characteristics photographers deliberately chase rather than mistakes to eliminate
• Dragging the shutter, explained: combining a slow shutter speed with flash to capture both a frozen subject and streaking ambient motion
• First curtain sync versus second curtain sync, and why second curtain tends to look more natural
• The difference between unintentional failure (worth minimizing) and intentional failure (a deliberate, informed choice to break a technical rule) — and why mastery is the prerequisite for the latter

Homework from this episode: The Broken Session

Go out with the specific intention of making technically incorrect images. Use a shutter speed that's too slow, manually focus past your subject, shoot straight into a light source. Try to come home with three images that are technical failures but emotional successes — where the flaw is doing some of the work — then ask honestly whether a "correct" version of the same shot could have done the same thing.

Support The Nerdy Photographer

• Sign Up for The Power Up - https://nerdyphotographer.com/newsletter
• Get some artwork from the print shop - https://art.caseyfphoto.com
• Buy some Nerdy Photographer Merch - https://nerdyphoto.dashery.com
• Use our link to buy new gear from Adorama - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/adorama
• Use our link to buy used gear from KEH - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/keh
• Follow along with us on social media @thenerdyphoto

About The Podcast

The Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's wedding work at https://fatchett.com or his non-wedding work at https://caseyfatchettphotography.com

If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any other episodes, OR if you would like to ask a photography related question or have ideas for a topic for a future episode, please reach out to us at https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact

Host Casey Fatchett talks with alternative process photographer Britt Bradley, known professionally as Nitrate Fox, about wet plate collodion photography, the history and politics baked into a 170-year-old medium, and Bradley's self-published photo book Jamnesia, which documents the roller derby community in tintype.

In this episode:

• Why Bradley chose a non-gender-specific artist name — and how it changed their exhibition acceptance rate
• Collodion's history as "a perpetual representation of the white male gaze," and how seating, standing, and exposure time shaped who was centered in 19th-century photographs
• How collodion's UV sensitivity affects the rendering of different skin tones
• Sharing copyright and physical plates with sitters as a way of redistributing power in the photographer/subject relationship
• The physical demands of wet plate: working within feet of a darkroom, racing the clock before a plate dries, and a 120-degree, quarter-mile sprint story from shooting on Fremont Street in Las Vegas
• What "truth" in photography really means — from treaty photographs to Dorothea Lange's contact sheets to Pete Souza's approach to documenting the White House
• Museum and archive access: how members of the public can actually request to view historic photographic collections
• Studio rules: "no negative self-talk" and "we always ask for consent" — and the story of photographing derby skater Aveda after her double mastectomy
• Why Bradley shoots roller derby "from the inside out" as a skater themself, rather than as an outside documentarian
• What three years, six states, 50+ leagues, and 500+ tintypes taught Bradley about derby community, care, and identity
• Embracing collodion's unpredictable artifacts as part of the story, not a flaw to eliminate
• Advice for anyone starting out in alternative process photography

Episode Promos

• On1 Photo RAW - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/on1
• Nerdy Photographer Contract Templates - https://nerdyphotographer.com/product-category/contracts/
• Siteground Web Hosting - https://siteground.com/go/nerdy
• Survey Monkey - https://get.surveymonkey.com/nerdy

About My Guest

Britt Bradley (Nitrate Fox) alternative process photographer and artist. Her work explores identity, empowerment, subculture, and personal narrative through hand-crafted photographic processes that bridge contemporary storytelling with 19th-century techniques. Bradley's work has been exhibited nationally and was recognized as a Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 photographer and a LensCulture Critics' Choice selection. She is the author of Jamnesia, a monograph documenting the world of roller derby through Wet Plate Collodion.

Website: https://www.nitratefox.com

Instagram: https://instagram.com/Nitrate_Fox

TikTok: https://tiktok.com/Nitrate_Fox

Book: Jamnesia: The Alternative Art of Athleticism — self-published, limited edition, available now at nitratefox.com

Follow the Nerdy Photographer Podcast:

• Instagram - https://instagram.com/thenerdyphoto
• Reddit - https://reddit.com/u/thenerdyphoto
• Threads - https://threads.com/thenerdyphoto
• Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/thenerdyphoto.bsky.social
• TikTok - https://tiktok.com/@thenerdyphoto

About The Podcast

The Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's wedding work at https://fatchett.com or his non-wedding work at https://caseyfatchettphotography.com

If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any other episodes, OR if you would like to ask a photography related question or have ideas for a topic for a future episode, please reach out to us at https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact

In this nerdlet, Casey makes the case for deliberately slowing down — and why the unlimited frame rates of modern cameras and phones may be quietly working against better photography.

In this episode:

• Why cheap, abundant frames change the psychology of shooting: when a missed shot costs nothing, the incentive to study each one disappears
• How high-volume shooting shifts the real creative decision from the moment of capture to the moment of culling
• Where burst shooting genuinely earns its place (sports, wildlife) versus where it works against you
• Henri Cartier-Bresson's The Decisive Moment (1952) and what "proactive" attention to a scene actually looks like
• The cognitive science angle: stimulus-driven (reactive) attention versus goal-directed (deliberate) attention, and why slow photography demands the latter
• Ansel Adams' concept of pre-visualization — forming the finished image in your mind before you shoot — and Casey's two ways of using it, including prepping mentally the day before a shoot
• The "film mindset": simulating the constraints of a 24 or 36-exposure roll with a digital camera, including no chimping and no in-field deletions

Homework from this episode:

Pick a hard limit — 12, 24, or 36 frames — for your next outing. No deleting in the field, no chimping, no exceptions. Before every shot, pause for a few seconds and ask what the photograph is actually about. When you review the results, pay attention not just to which images worked, but to how differently you moved, waited, and looked.

Support The Nerdy Photographer

• Sign Up for The Power Up - https://nerdyphotographer.com/newsletter
• Get some artwork from the print shop - https://art.caseyfphoto.com
• Buy some Nerdy Photographer Merch - https://nerdyphoto.dashery.com
• Use our link to buy new gear from Adorama - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/adorama
• Use our link to buy used gear from KEH - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/keh
• Follow along with us on social media @thenerdyphoto

About The Podcast

The Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's wedding work at https://fatchett.com or his non-wedding work at https://caseyfatchettphotography.com

If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any other episodes, OR if you would like to ask a photography related question or have ideas for a topic for a future episode, please reach out to us at https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact

In this episode, Casey Fatchett sits down with award-winning photographer Ari Espay, who splits his time between New York City and Santiago, Chile. Ari discusses his decade producing and teaching at National Geographic's photography workshops alongside legends like David Alan Harvey, Ed Kashi, Bob Sacha, Ira Block, and Maggie Steber; his approach to street photography and portraiture with subjects ranging from presidents to Broadway performers; his long-term humanitarian project documenting the EB (Epidermolysis Bullosa) community; and his nonprofit Statement Arts, which has run photography workshops and donated more than 100 cameras to young and at-risk photographers in Myanmar and Laos, including activists documenting human rights abuses in their own communities.

Topics Covered:

• Lessons from a decade at National Geographic's photography workshops
• Why "serendipity" changed how Ari approaches every shoot
• Reading a scene: light, subject, and background as visual problem-solving
• Building trust with strangers on the street
• Studio portraiture with presidents and public figures vs. street portraiture
• Photographing vulnerability: the Faces of EB project
• Where to draw the line between bearing witness and intruding
• Statement Arts: teaching photography and donating cameras in Myanmar and Laos
• Why the people living a crisis should be the ones documenting it
• The throughline across Ari's career: humanity

Episode Promos

• On1 Photo RAW - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/on1
• Nerdy Photographer Contract Templates - https://nerdyphotographer.com/product-category/contracts/
• Siteground Web Hosting - https://siteground.com/go/nerdy
• Survey Monkey - https://get.surveymonkey.com/nerdy

ABOUT MY GUEST

Award-winning photographer, Ari Espay, splits his time between New York City and Santiago, Chile. Ari has shot documentary pieces, campaigns and editorial essays for magazines in the US and all over South America including; Architectural Digest, Vogue Latin America, Que Pasa, and ED. He has worked for Maybelline, Gillette, Corpbanca, Ferouch, New Man, Kohana Rum, Amazon/AWS, Australis Cruise to name a few and has shot portraits for Presidents, internationally known actors, Emmy Award winning directors, Broadway performers, politicians and high profile business people.

With numerous gallery exhibitions, Ari's recent show, "A Glimpse of Southeast Asia" was featured at the Galleria d'Arte Moderna, a museum in Cento, Italy (2018 – 2019). Other exhibitions include; 2026 "Rostros, El Mar De Cultura" Valencia Photo Festival, Spain. 2025 "FACES / VISAGES" , Art-Icon Collective Exhibition Arles, France. 2024 "Corporeality" Art-Icon Collective Exhibition - Paris, 2024 "Moments in Time" Art on the Avenue - New York City, New York, 2021 Art on the Avenue - New York City, New York "Art on the Avenue" (New York City 2021), "Mingalabar Myanmar"(Rome and Bologna, Italy - 2016) and "The Faces of EB" in New York City (2015). In 2012, he was named as Artistic Director of International Projects for Galeria64, the only gallery in Chile exhibiting photography exclusively.

Ari has won Chile's prestigious Fondart Grant, was a 2026 Finalist Lucie Foundation On The Block Street Photography, a 2026 Selected Winner American Photography AI-AP 42, a 2024 Portraiture Bronze Winner Prix de la Photographie Paris PX3, Short Listed "EB" State of the World Project Prix de la Photographie Paris PX3, Street Photography Honorable Mention Prix de la Photographie Paris PX3 and 4 Portraiture Honorable Mention Prix de la Photographie Paris PX3, a 2024, 2022 BIFA Budapest International Foto Award Silver winner in Book / Documentary, 2022 MIFA Moscow International Photo Award Winner for our book, 2020Unmasked, in the Documentary Book category.

He was the photo editor for "2020 Unmasked" book which won 2 Honorable Mentions at the IPA/International Photography Awards for Documentary and Self-published book.

For 10 years, he taught photography workshops for National Geographic and their legendary photographers including, Joe McNally, Bob Sacha, Ira Block, VII's agency Ed Kashi and Magnum's David Alan Harvey. He has worked and traveled in more than 40 countries.

Ari speaks 3 languages and enjoys spending time in the mountains.

Find Ari Espay:

• Website: https://www.ariespayphotography.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ari_espay/
• Photography Workshops: https://www.fancygirlstreetboy.com
• Nonprofit: https://www.statementarts.org

Follow the Nerdy Photographer Podcast:

• Instagram - https://instagram.com/thenerdyphoto
• Reddit - https://reddit.com/u/thenerdyphoto
• Threads - https://threads.com/thenerdyphoto
• Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/thenerdyphoto.bsky.social
• TikTok - https://tiktok.com/@thenerdyphoto

About The Podcast

The Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's wedding work at https://fatchett.com or his non-wedding work at https://caseyfatchettphotography.com

If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any other episodes, OR if you would like to ask a photography related question or have ideas for a topic for a future episode, please reach out to us at https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact

You finish editing a photo you're proud of. You post it. Then you scroll — and within thirty seconds you feel like giving up. This episode explains exactly why that happens, and what to do about it.

What you'll learn:

Social comparison isn't a character flaw — it's a documented psychological mechanism first described by Leon Festinger in 1954. Human beings evaluate their own abilities by comparing themselves to others, which was a useful system for most of human history. Social media broke it by replacing your actual peer group with a globally curated highlight reel, filtered and amplified by an algorithm designed to surface the most extraordinary content because extraordinary content keeps you scrolling longer.

You are comparing your complete output — including the misfires and the experiments — to someone else's absolute best work. Your brain doesn't naturally correct for that structural unfairness. It just registers the gap and feels bad about it.

We cover Ira Glass's concept of the gap — the distance between your taste and your ability that every creative person experiences in the early and middle stages of development. The gap isn't evidence that you lack talent. It's evidence that your taste is working. The only way to close it is through volume of work, not volume of consumption.

We also get practical about curated consumption — how to use mute buttons, who to follow and who to stop following, and why replacing algorithm-driven feeds with historical photographers removes the social pressure from the equation entirely.

Key takeaways:

• The algorithm surfaces extremes, not averages — you're not seeing a representative sample of photography
• The gap between taste and ability is a sign your aesthetic sense is working, not that you lack talent
• Curated consumption is an active practice, not a passive one — manage your inputs deliberately

This week's homework: mute five accounts that consistently leave you feeling discouraged rather than curious. Then spend twenty minutes looking at the work of one historical photographer whose images genuinely move you — without checking follower counts, reading comments, or scrolling past it. Just look.

Support The Nerdy Photographer

• Sign Up for The Power Up - https://nerdyphotographer.com/newsletter
• Get some artwork from the print shop - https://art.caseyfphoto.com
• Buy some Nerdy Photographer Merch - https://nerdyphoto.dashery.com
• Use our link to buy new gear from Adorama - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/adorama
• Use our link to buy used gear from KEH - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/keh
• Follow along with us on social media @thenerdyphoto

About The Podcast

The Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's wedding work at https://fatchett.com or his non-wedding work at https://caseyfatchettphotography.com

If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any other episodes, OR if you would like to ask a photography related question or have ideas for a topic for a future episode, please reach out to us at https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact

What do you do when you've had two successful careers — and neither of them is the one you actually love?

For David Hendley, the answer was waking up at 4:30 in the morning to drive to the California coast before work, camera in hand, teaching himself to shoot seascapes in changing light until photography stopped feeling like a hobby and started feeling like a calling.

In this episode, David traces his journey from the NFL to the corporate boardroom to documenting the natural world — and we spend most of our time on the question that sits at the center of his work: what does it mean to have a vision as a photographer, and how do you actually develop one?

David is specific, honest, and genuinely useful on all of it. He talks about finding balance, mood, and simplicity as the three pillars of how he sees. About walking past the same lake 40 times before the image finally revealed itself. About deliberately limiting himself to five exposures on an outing to force intentionality. And about why, if you're not emotionally tied to a photograph, other people will feel that too.

He also makes a case for failure as the best teaching tool a photographer has — something he learned long before he ever picked up a camera.

Episode Promos:

• StyleCloud — beautifully designed website templates for photographers: https://https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/stylecloud | Code: nerdyphoto15 (15% off)
• Luminar Neo — AI-powered photo editing software: https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/luminar | Code: nerdyphoto ($10 off)
• SiteGround — web hosting with increased storage capacity: https://siteground.com/go/nerdy

In this episode: → Growing up on National Geographic and how those images never left him → How athletic discipline translated to learning photography at 5 a.m. → The three things he looks for in every image: balance, mood, and simplicity → Why vision can't be forced — and how to let it develop naturally → The five-exposure challenge and the power of intentional shooting → Failure as a growth mechanism, from the NFL to the field → Staying true to your vision when commercial pressure shows up

Find David's work at davidspursuit.com and @davidspursuit on Instagram.

🎙️ Subscribe for new episodes every week 🔔 Hit the bell so you don't miss what's next 📸 Follow the Nerdy Photographer: @thenerdyphoto on Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Reddit, and Blue Sky

Chapters:

00:00 – Introduction

04:19 – Meet David Hendley

06:24 – From the NFL to the boardroom to the wild

09:24 – National Geographic and the images that never left

10:37 – Going all in: 5 a.m. seascapes before work

13:05 – How athletic discipline translates to photography

19:48 – Why nature? The pull of the natural world

22:40 – Vision: balance, mood, and simplicity

24:35 – How his vision developed (it crept up on him)

28:18 – Advice for finding your own vision

31:40 – Staying true to yourself under pressure

35:06 – Why failure is your best teacher

36:44 – The five-exposure challenge

43:58 – Does vision narrow or open things up?

46:17 – Walking past the same lake 40 times

48:07 – Vision vs. commercial pressure

53:13 – Advice for creatives at a crossroads

57:26 – Useless information: the first televised football game

58:27 – Where to find David's work

Support The Nerdy Photographer

Want to help The Nerdy Photographer Podcast? Here are a few simple (and mostly free) ways you can do that:

• Subscribe to the podcast!
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About The Podcast

The Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's wedding work at https://fatchett.com or his non-wedding work at https://caseyfatchettphotography.com

If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any other episodes, OR if you would like to ask a photography related question or have ideas for a topic for a future episode, please reach out to us at https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact

Every single hard drive you own will eventually fail. Not might fail — will fail. It is just a matter of time. The photographers who lose irreplaceable work aren't the ones who didn't care. They're the ones who meant to get a better system in place and hadn't gotten around to it yet. This episode makes sure you're not one of them.

What you'll learn:

The industry standard for data protection is the 3-2-1 rule: three copies of your data, on two different types of media, with one copy stored off-site. Each component protects against a different category of failure, and skipping any one of them leaves a gap that a single event — a flood, a theft, a power surge — can exploit completely.

We cover RAID systems and the critical distinction most photographers miss: not all RAID configurations protect your data. RAID 0 actually increases your risk of loss by striping data across two drives, meaning either drive failing takes everything with it. RAID 1, which mirrors data across two drives simultaneously, is what's relevant for redundancy.

We also draw a clear line between sync services and backup services — a distinction that matters enormously. Dropbox and Google Drive are not backups. If you delete a file or a virus corrupts your data, they'll faithfully replicate that change to the cloud. True backup services maintain versioned snapshots over time specifically designed for recovery, not just access. Our recommendation for cloud backup is Backblaze - https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-backup/personal#afc32p

Finally, we cover cold storage maintenance — why mechanical drives left idle for extended periods can seize, and why spinning them up once a year is essential — and the habit most photographers never build: actually verifying that their backups work.

Key takeaways:

• The 3-2-1 rule is the baseline — three copies, two media types, one off-site
• RAID 1 protects against drive failure but not deletion, corruption, or disaster
• Sync is not backup — you need versioned snapshots, not mirrored folders
• A backup you've never tested is not a backup you can trust

This week's homework — The Audit: locate every drive you own and identify your single points of failure. If any important work exists in only one place, resolve that today. Then set a recurring calendar reminder to verify your backups every few months.

Support The Nerdy Photographer

• Sign Up for The Power Up - https://nerdyphotographer.com/newsletter
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• Use our link to buy used gear from KEH - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/keh
• Follow along with us on social media @thenerdyphoto

About The Podcast

The Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's wedding work at https://fatchett.com or his non-wedding work at https://caseyfatchettphotography.com

If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any other episodes, OR if you would like to ask a photography related question or have ideas for a topic for a future episode, please reach out to us at https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact

In this episode, I sit down with portrait photographer Betina LaPlante to explore the philosophy and practice behind her visceral, intimate portraiture.

Topics covered:

• Why Betina puts the camera down before she ever starts shooting — and how building rapport before a session transforms the images she gets
• The difference between directing a subject and witnessing one — and why she almost always chooses to witness
• Her work photographing actors like Charles Dance and Christopher Lloyd, and what it means to reveal the person behind the persona
• How shooting tethered (something she rarely does) became the right call for one particularly camera-shy subject
• Her 35mm lens, her reliance on natural light, and why she's learning to work with continuous artificial lights
• Her lifelong love of black and white — from developing film in her bathroom darkroom to converting digital portraits today
• Why hands are central to her portraits: what they reveal, why they're harder to perform with, and how they carry a life's worth of character
• The ethics of intimacy in portraiture — and why she has never felt the need to use discomfort as a tool
• Dream subjects she'd love to photograph: Tilda Swinton, Willem Dafoe, Christopher Walken, and more
• Her advice for photographers still finding their voice: shoot what you genuinely love

Find Betina LaPlante:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/betinatheplante
• Website: https://betinaplante.com

Sponsor links:

• StyleCloud — beautifully designed website templates for photographers: https://https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/stylecloud | Code: nerdyphoto15 (15% off)
• Luminar Neo — AI-powered photo editing software: https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/luminar | Code: nerdyphoto ($10 off)
• SiteGround — web hosting with increased storage capacity: https://siteground.com/go/nerdy

Support The Nerdy Photographer

• Sign Up for The Power Up - https://nerdyphotographer.com/newsletter
• Get some artwork from the print shop - https://art.caseyfphoto.com
• Buy some Nerdy Photographer Merch - https://nerdyphoto.dashery.com
• Use our link to buy new gear from Adorama - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/adorama
• Use our link to buy used gear from KEH - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/keh
• Follow along with us on social media @thenerdyphoto

About The Podcast

The Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's wedding work at https://fatchett.com or his non-wedding work at https://caseyfatchettphotography.com

If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any other episodes, OR if you would like to ask a photography related question or have ideas for a topic for a future episode, please reach out to us at https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact

You can be an exceptional photographer and still be completely invisible to the clients actively searching for someone like you. Not because your work isn't good enough, but because Google doesn't know you exist. Don't worry, though! This episode is going to make that problem go away.

SEO for photographers isn't dark magic. For a local photography business, roughly 90% of what moves the needle comes down to three things: your H1 tag, your image alt-text, and your site speed.

Your H1 is the main headline on your webpage and one of the strongest signals Google uses to understand what your page is about. "Capturing the Essence of Your Soul" is lovely — but nobody is searching for it. "Wedding Photographer in Austin" is what actually gets you found.

Alt-text is the written description attached to every image on your site. Google cannot see your photographs — it reads the label you give them. A file named "_MG_5422.jpg" tells Google nothing. A file named "golden-hour-bride-groom-portrait-austin-texas.jpg" with a matching alt-text description tells Google exactly what it needs to know.

Site speed is a documented Google ranking factor, and photographers are almost universally the worst offenders — uploading massive unoptimised files directly from Lightroom. Images destined for the web should be under 500KB. Free tools like Squoosh make this straightforward. I also recommend using a file format such as WebP to bring down file sizes.

Finally, we cover Google Business Profile — the free local listing that puts you on the map, literally, when someone searches for a photographer near them. A complete, well-reviewed profile can outperform a first-page organic ranking for local search intent.

Support The Nerdy Photographer

• Sign Up for The Power Up - https://nerdyphotographer.com/newsletter
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• Use our link to buy new gear from Adorama - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/adorama
• Use our link to buy used gear from KEH - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/keh
• Follow along with us on social media @thenerdyphoto

About The Podcast

The Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's wedding work at https://fatchett.com or his non-wedding work at https://caseyfatchettphotography.com

If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any other episodes, OR if you would like to ask a photography related question or have ideas for a topic for a future episode, please reach out to us at https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact

In this episode, Casey speaks with photographer, filmmaker, and DePaul University professor James Choi, who returned to Seoul after 46 years away and came back with the images that became Seoul Days and Nights, a new photo book from Trope. They dig into what it means to photograph a city holding ancient tradition and radical modernity in the same frame, the slow disappearance of the small family-run food shops that give neighborhoods their character, and how the Korean social concept of nunchi - the unspoken ability to read a room - shapes James's entire approach to working on the street.

In This Episode

• How a six-month sabbatical in Seoul turned into a photo book
• Photographing the tension between ancient palaces and glass skyscrapers - and why Seoul makes that contrast feel surprisingly at peace
• The vanishing mom-and-pop food culture, and what gets lost when it goes
• What nunchi is, why James's mother always said he had it, and how it cuts both ways as a street photographer
• The ethical lines James draws on the street - when he holds back and why
• The one image in the book that reminded him of his grandfather
• What he hopes a first-time Seoul visitor takes from the book vs. what he hopes a local sees

Episode Promos

• Seoul Days and Nights — https://amzn.to/4xSLRZz
• StyleCloud website templates for photographers — https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/stylecloud | Code: NERDYPHOTO15 for 15% off
• Luminar Neo photo editing software — https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/luminar | Code: NERDYPHOTO for $10 off
• SiteGround web hosting — https://siteground.com/go/nerdy

Support The Nerdy Photographer

• Sign Up for The Power Up - https://nerdyphotographer.com/newsletter
• Get some artwork from the print shop - https://art.caseyfphoto.com
• Buy some Nerdy Photographer Merch - https://nerdyphoto.dashery.com
• Use our link to buy new gear from Adorama - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/adorama
• Use our link to buy used gear from KEH - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/keh
• Follow along with us on social media @thenerdyphoto

About My Guest

James Choi grew up a latchkey kid in Chicago. His parents immigrated from Korea when he was five and worked six days a week, so from age six and Seven he was alone taking the bus, walking the city, learning to read people and places and light. He didn't know it then, but he was already doing what he'd spend his life doing: observing. Photography and eventually filmmaking came from that.

His work has earned Awards at SXSW, Slamdance and Chicago International Film Festival. As an educator, James is also an assistant Professor at DePaul University where he founded Indie Studio, supporting students making their first independent features.

Seoul Days and Nights is in some ways a return to the beginning except this time he was walking a city that looked like him.

Seoul Days and Nights is available now - you can get it on Amazon - https://amzn.to/3QTxq6R. James Choi can be found on Instagram at https://instagram.com/JCPOV.

About The Podcast

The Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's wedding work at https://fatchett.com or his non-wedding work at https://caseyfatchettphotography.com

If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any other episodes, OR if you would like to ask a photography related question or have ideas for a topic for a future episode, please reach out to us at https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact

You've probably been told you should shoot RAW. And I'm sure you've also thought - WHY? I'm just delivering a JPEG file anyway. What's inside a RAW file that makes it worth the storage space?

This episode gets into the numbers, and once you see them, the case for RAW becomes impossible to argue with. Yes, I knew it was your understanding that there would be no math, but, unfortunately, there's actually a lot of math behind what you see in digital photos.

Bit depth is exponential, not additive. A standard JPEG is 8-bit, giving you 256 brightness levels per colour channel and roughly 16.7 million possible colours total. A 14-bit RAW file gives you 16,384 levels per channel — over 4 trillion possible colours. That gap is invisible straight out of camera. It becomes very visible the moment you start editing.

We cover the staircase effect — what happens to smooth gradients in low bit-depth files when you push exposure or shadows in post. Those gaps between brightness levels stretch apart and become visible as banding: ugly, digital-looking stripes in what should be a smooth sky or a softly lit wall. In a 14-bit file, the steps are fine enough that normal editing simply can't pull them apart.

We also break down the difference between lossless and lossy RAW compression. Lossless compression reduces file size without discarding any data — think of it like a ZIP file for your image. Lossy compression makes a permanent, one-time decision to discard some sensor data at capture. For many shots you'll never notice. For scenes with subtle gradients or heavy shadow recovery, you might.

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• Use our link to buy used gear from KEH - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/keh
• Follow along with us on social media @thenerdyphoto

About The Podcast

The Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's wedding work at https://fatchett.com or his non-wedding work at https://caseyfatchettphotography.com

If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any other episodes, OR if you would like to ask a photography related question or have ideas for a topic for a future episode, please reach out to us at https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact

Portrait photographer Craig Fleming has spent decades navigating the space between film and digital, celebrity commissions and working-class subjects, polish and truth. In this episode of The Nerdy Photographer Podcast, Craig joins us for a wide-ranging conversation about his process, his philosophy, and two ongoing personal projects — Quiet Men and Circus — that are reshaping how he thinks about legacy and the purpose of his work.

We get into what it really means to balance film and digital photography, why Craig thinks returning to medium format gave him integrity back as a photographer — and made him better at digital. We talk about his strong feelings on AI and what it's taking from photographers and creatives. Craig also shares what he believes is the single most important element of a great portrait — and it has nothing to do with your camera.

Episode Promos

• Siteground Web Hosting - https://siteground.com/go/nerdy
• Stylecloud Website Templates - https://stylecloud.co/ref/380/
• Luminar NEO Photo Editing Software - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/luminar

Support The Nerdy Photographer

• Sign Up for The Power Up - https://nerdyphotographer.com/newsletter
• Get some artwork from the print shop - https://art.caseyfphoto.com
• Buy some Nerdy Photographer Merch - https://nerdyphoto.dashery.com
• Use our link to buy new gear from Adorama - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/adorama
• Use our link to buy used gear from KEH - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/keh
• Follow along with us on social media @thenerdyphoto

About My Guest

"Portrait photographer. Stuck in the mid 20th Century."

You can find Craig's workshops — in London, Rotterdam, and Venice — at https://craigfleming.net, and follow his ongoing projects on Instagram at https://instagram.com/craigflemingphoto

About The Podcast

The Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's wedding work at https://fatchett.com or his non-wedding work at https://caseyfatchettphotography.com

If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any other episodes, OR if you would like to ask a photography related question or have ideas for a topic for a future episode, please reach out to us at https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact

Many photographers learn aperture in two steps: wide for blur, narrow for sharpness. It's a reasonable starting point, but it skips the physics that actually determines how sharp your images are, and it leads to a habit that's quietly costing you image quality. And if you know anything about me at this point, you know I'm down for a physics discussion.

We start with diffraction — the optical phenomenon that makes f/22 softer than f/8, even though everything is technically "in focus." When light is forced through a tiny aperture opening, it bends and spreads rather than travelling cleanly to the sensor. The result is a subtle mushiness that no amount of post-processing sharpening can fully recover, because the data simply wasn't captured cleanly in the first place.

From there we cover the aperture sweet spot — the range, typically two to three stops from wide open, where most lenses perform at their sharpest from corner to corner. This varies by lens, which is why the episode homework is designed to help you find your specific lens's optimal aperture rather than relying on a general rule.

Finally, we tackle one of the most persistent myths in photography: lens compression. Longer focal lengths don't actually compress a scene — distance does. Understanding why changes how you think about lens choice for portraits and environmental shots.

Support The Nerdy Photographer

• Sign Up for The Power Up - https://nerdyphotographer.com/newsletter
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• Use our link to buy new gear from Adorama - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/adorama
• Use our link to buy used gear from KEH - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/keh
• Follow along with us on social media @thenerdyphoto

About The Podcast

The Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's wedding work at https://fatchett.com or his non-wedding work at https://caseyfatchettphotography.com

If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any other episodes, OR if you would like to ask a photography related question or have ideas for a topic for a future episode, please reach out to us at https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact

Nature photography is often associated with solitude, exploration, and connection to the outdoors. But for many photographers, especially Black women, entering those spaces hasn't always been welcoming - or safe.

In this episode of The Nerdy Photographer Podcast, I sit down with wildlife and nature photographer Angela Ledyard to discuss the importance of representation in outdoor photography, building community, and creating spaces where more Black women feel encouraged to explore nature photography.

We also talk about Angela's own photographic journey, the evolution of her work, and the long solo trips she takes in pursuit of wildlife and landscape images.

Why Representation in Nature Photography Matters

For decades, outdoor and wildlife photography spaces have lacked diversity in visibility, leadership, and community support.

Angela discusses how that absence affects participation. It affects who feels comfortable entering these spaces and who sees photography as being 'for them.

Creating visibility matters because people often need to see themselves reflected somewhere before they feel they belong there. Through her work and community-building efforts, Angela is helping redefine what nature photography spaces can look like.

Why Visibility Changes Possibility

One of the most meaningful ideas from this episode is simple: visibility expands possibility.

When photographers see others who look like them succeeding in a space, it changes what feels achievable.

Angela's work not only creates photographs - it creates permission! Permission to explore, travel, take up space, and pursue creative work in environments that may have felt inaccessible.

That impact extends far beyond photography itself.

Episode Promos

• Siteground Web Hosting - https://siteground.com/go/nerdy
• Stylecloud Website Templates - https://stylecloud.co/ref/380/
• On1 Photo Editing Software - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/on1/
• Aftershoot AI Culling, Editing, and Retouching - https://aftershoot.com/?ref=nerdyphoto

Support The Nerdy Photographer

• Sign Up for The Power Up - https://nerdyphotographer.com/newsletter
• Get some artwork from the print shop - https://art.caseyfphoto.com
• Buy some Nerdy Photographer Merch - https://nerdyphoto.dashery.com
• Use our link to buy new gear from Adorama - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/adorama
• Use our link to buy used gear from KEH - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/keh
• Follow along with us on social media @thenerdyphoto

About My Guest

Angela Ledyard is a nature and wildlife photographer whose work focuses on birds, landscapes, macro subjects, and the quiet details of the natural world. Her photography is shaped by a deep love of travel, exploration, and time spent outdoors, with images inspired by experiences across the United States, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and parts of South america. She is especially drawn to moments that connect beauty, behavior, and place.

In addition to creating her own work, Angela has led photography tours on the West Coast and in Alaska, helping others slow down, observe more deeply, and build confidence behind the camera. Through her photography, travel, and storytelling, she aims to inspire curiosity, connection, and appreciation for the natural world.

You can view Angela's work on her Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/angelaledyard.photography/ - or connect with her on her Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/c/AngelaLedyard

About The Podcast

The Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's work at https://caseyfphoto.com

If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any other episodes, OR if you would like to ask a photography related question or have ideas for a topic for a future episode, please reach out to us at https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact

Most photographers have thousands, or even tens of thousands, of forgotten images sitting on hard drives.

But what if some of your best work is already there, waiting to be rediscovered?

In this episode of The Nerdy Photographer Podcast, I sit down with photographer Ian Plant to discuss the process of revisiting a massive photographic archive and selecting images to convert into black and white.

What begins as a conversation about monochrome photography quickly becomes something deeper: a discussion about how changing the way you see an image can completely transform the way you evaluate your work.

Why Revisit Your Photography Archive?

Most photographers move forward constantly - new shoots, new gear, new edits, new projects.

Rarely do we stop and revisit older work with fresh eyes.

Ian discusses the surprising experience of combing through tens of thousands of images and realizing that photographs overlooked years ago suddenly carried new emotional or artistic weight when viewed differently.

Distance matters.

As photographers grow creatively, their ability to recognize strong composition, light, texture, mood, and storytelling evolves too. Images that once seemed ordinary may reveal entirely new potential years later.

Key Takeaways from the Episode

• Your archive may contain some of your strongest unseen work
• Time and distance can completely change how you evaluate images
• Black and white photography emphasizes composition, light, and emotion
• Revisiting older work helps refine your creative voice
• Not every image needs color to be powerful

Episode Promos

• Learn photography at your own pace - https://nerdyphotographer.com/learn
• StyleCloud Photography Website Templates - https://stylecloud.co/ref/380/
• Siteground Web Hosting - https://siteground.com/go/nerdy
• Luminar NEO Photo Editing Software - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/luminar

Support The Nerdy Photographer

• Sign Up for The Power Up - https://nerdyphotographer.com/newsletter
• Get some artwork from the print shop - https://art.caseyfphoto.com
• Buy some Nerdy Photographer Merch - https://nerdyphoto.dashery.com
• Use our link to buy new gear from Adorama - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/adorama
• Use our link to buy used gear from KEH - https://nerdyphotographer.com/recommends/keh
• Follow along with us on social media @thenerdyphoto

About My Guest

Whether hanging over the rim of an active volcano or braving the elements to photograph critically endangered species, Ian Plant has spent the past two decades traveling the globe in his never-ending quest to capture the beauty of our world with his camera. Ian has reached hundreds of thousands of people in his mission to inspire and educate others in the art of photography. Ian is the author of dozens of books and instructional videos, an instructor for KelbyOne and other photography education outlets, and founder of Photo Masters, a site dedicated to photography education and inspiration.

You can view Ian's work on his website https://Ianplant.com/ - learn from Ian at https://www.photomasters.com - or find him on Instagram @ianplantphoto

About The Podcast

The Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's wedding work at https://fatchett.com or his non-wedding work at https://caseyfatchettphotography.com

If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any other episodes, OR if you would like to ask a photography related question or have ideas for a topic for a future episode, please reach out to us at https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact