Think Differently. Solve the Impossible.

 

Show Notes

Website: https://www.photojam.net/

Lessons: https://www.photojam.net/learn

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

 
Join a Jam: https://www.photojam.net/jam
 
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/photojamfb

Transcript
 

My guest today is Molly Schlachter, a photographer and creator of Photo Jam, a website online where creatives can go to re-envision life through photography and to foster personal growth and connection through an online community of other photographers.

We're going to be talking about photography, tips for taking better photos, and what you can do, whether you're a beginner or an expert, to use photography as a creative outlet and as a tool for self-discovery and personal growth.

welcome to my show, Molly.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

So I was telling you, I'm not a photographer.

Actually, I take a lot of photos on my iPhone.

I'd love to learn how to take better photographs.

That's very nice.

That's cool.

So, tell me how you got started taking pictures and your inspiration behind creating Photo Jam website.

Well, gosh, I've been a photographer for the past 20 years.

So I don't remember how I got started.

I think my dad had an old Pentax when I was a kid, and I thought that was the greatest thing ever.

And then after I did a stint in my life as a teacher, and I had studied fine arts, but I never really picked up the camera.

And when I did, that was it.

It was all over.

It was my obsession.

How old were you when you picked up?

Back in the day, she's not old people, by the way, but still, digital cameras haven't been around that long, so.

Well, I got to say, so it's 2024.

And when did we, I started doing it when digital came out.

Like when it came out, that's when I picked up the camera and brought it and made it my profession.

But you had, you mentioned Pentax, which is a camera, right?

A real camera, I call it.

A real camera.

I have it around here.

It's at my studio.

Which remind me, one of my questions, we could get to it now.

Why do you, what's the, do you think people need a real camera?

I mean, they don't need one, but why would you get a real camera versus, what can you do with a real camera you can't do with your iPhone, or your phone?

With a real camera or something like that, I mean, the professional photographer, I have more control over what I'm capturing in front of my lens with my camera.

I also take lots of pictures with my phone all the time, but that's not professional.

I don't use that for my job, for my job I use because I have so much creative control over, I can change the lighting, I can shoot raw, I can shoot raw with my phone too, but it's just not quite the same.

It's not there yet.

So you use your, what should I call it instead of a real camera?

What do you call the, if it's not your phone, what do you call it?

Your DSLR.

And then now we're moving into mirrorless.

I haven't made that jump because I'm actually more interested in pointing and shooting these days.

I really am doing a lot more creative photography because of Photo Jam.

Photo Jam is interesting.

Yeah, so let's talk about that.

Why specifically do you think photography is a good tool for a creative outlet?

And also I see here that it's thought to be good for mental health and well-being.

Oh, yeah.

I 100% believe that when I pick up my camera, that's when all my stress kind of goes away.

Monkey Mind shuts off.

I go into my flow when I'm in your creative flow, and you can do it with a paintbrush, you can do it with writing songs, you can however, whatever your creative path is.

If you have a creative practice, then you know, you know, you get into that flow of creativity and you forget, you forget about everything else.

Or that minute or 20 minutes or hour or second that you're doing.

I even read on your site or somewhere that it can help people, photography in particular, help people process serious emotions like trauma.

Well, I totally believe all of this.

I don't think you saw that on my website.

I'm not sure if I went there.

I'm not a photographer and I'm trying to bear questions that are intelligent and also good for people who have just the phone, not DSLR, and maybe they want to get into photography.

But to me, it's always been one of these technical topics like, oh, your lighting is not right and you're not a photographer.

And so, yeah, maybe that's why I came across this, that people could use it to process trauma and self-discovery, not just be a professional photographer.

Right.

It's interesting that you just said that and I gassed, because you kind of put out there what so many people feel.

And as a kid, we're finger painting or doing our thing, and it really doesn't matter to us.

We have no inhibition as a child to do art.

So kid art is just so beautiful to me.

It really is so uninhibited.

But as you grow older and people tell you, you're not good enough, you don't know how, don't do that.

You'll make a fool out of yourself.

You know what I mean?

As we get older, we get that mindset.

Or worse, you show them what you think is a good photo, and some guy who is or a girl who is a photographer doesn't understand, you got to be gentle.

I'm not you.

I'm not a pro.

And then you feel like, oh my gosh, I'm never going to share a photo again and I can't do this.

I take bad photos, which is not true.

Even with music or song, it's very subjective to who you ask.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's just, who's to say?

The one thing in Photo Jam, we definitely believe and we celebrate all everything that comes through, is that in art, there is no best.

We believe that there's no comparing one artist to another.

You can't compare Eminem to Prince to Bob Dylan, right?

I mean, it just doesn't make any sense to do that.

In art, you wouldn't compare Picasso to Michelangelo to Andy Warhol.

It doesn't make any sense.

And at Photo Jam, and in life, you can't compare my artwork, my photographs to your photographs, because you and I have two very unique visual voices, two very unique experiences, and there's no way we can compete with each other, because it just doesn't make sense.

So we don't compete.

It's all selling.

As long as we're talking about the personal development and discovery, we'll get to the technical stuff for you, real photographers.

And no, we won't.

She's shaking her head.

Okay.

Well, let's keep on with this idea.

So how can it be used to discover yourself, and, you know, self-discovery and expression versus I'm just going to take photos so people like my photos, versus me and who I'm about and my thing?

How does it go into self-discovery and self-discovery?

Look, one idea I read or heard is, if you, by looking at all the photos you take, you start to realize what's important to you in life, like I like flowers or I like buildings, I like architecture.

Like some people journal, like a camera might be like a digital journal.

And then if you add to that, these tips are going to talk about how to make your journal more interesting and cool pictures, then you have a good story to tell, right?

Yeah.

self-discovery, self-expression.

I think more self-expression, and the discovery you get along the way.

As you're, I think the whole thing is a journey.

It's your life's creative practice.

So I think of it a lot like my yoga practice.

I don't expect to be perfect on the mat every time, but as I move through meditation or yoga or my asanas, then I get better at it.

I get better at, I guess, getting inside my head.

Give me an example of, excuse me, I'm going to edit this out.

Give me an example of somebody on your site, Photo Jam, a beginner, a real beginner.

They just got a DLSR.

How did they evolve?

How did you get them out of their fear state of being?

Yeah, go ahead.

That is the real challenge.

That's the real challenge is getting, to come to Photo Jam, I've found that it takes a lot of vulnerability because you're putting yourself out there, and these people who maybe are professional photographers, me, you know, like, I am a professional photographer, but it doesn't mean I think I'm better than anybody else that comes.

So how do I get them out of their fear state?

Yeah, so they feel comfortable and it really comes out, like really, kind of like if you go to karaoke and you're afraid to sing, you got a killer voice.

You've never heard it before because you're afraid to sing.

How do you bring it out of them?

I don't know how to do it.

I really wish I knew how to help people feel less vulnerable.

But once they get there, then they realize this is a safe space.

I mean, we have three rules at Photo Jam.

There we go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The rules of Photo Jam are no judgment, no contests, and no politics.

I like the no contest one.

Yeah.

That's when you lose the contest last place.

It does not do great for you.

And as a rock climber, you have climbed mountains.

A lot of mountains have never been climbed before.

People think I am this great climber.

I have to tell them a story of when I started climbing, they had to push me up the easiest climb.

Scared, scared.

And like, I mean, I was the last guy to get up and only because enough people pushed me.

Literally, like, I'll stand in, in terrified repel.

Like I'd go out and spend the whole afternoon just, and just nope, not going to do it, just to go down a 20 foot cliff.

And then, yeah, but also I found the right people.

When I realized that people that I was with weren't really supporting me, I somehow was lucky enough to, maybe they didn't, maybe they didn't like me enough.

They left and I had to find other people.

And then there were good people I found.

I'm like, oh, thanks for the encouragement.

And, oh, yeah, I can learn this.

And, oh, yeah, I'm really good at it, actually.

If you teach me, like teach me what to do different and don't just say it's bad.

You have to step out of your comfort zone to get to that good stuff, right?

If someone hadn't pushed you up that hill or if you hadn't even tried, or say you never tried again after that coming in the last place or whatever it was, what if you'd never tried again?

You wouldn't forget anyway.

You just really have to step out of your comfort zone a little bit to get the magic.

If you're shooting and you do get a lot of that flow state as you're creating, I found there's another flow state.

I don't know if we call it the flow state, but there's another euphoric thing that happens when you share your work, and when you realize how other people see it.

Like, I have a ton of pictures.

Oh yeah.

And you don't get that feedback right away or ever.

That's the hard part.

Or ever.

Or ever, right?

Yeah.

You said that.

You only get the one person that didn't like it.

So you got to just basically, I guess the answer is you do your thing and you try to just try to not grow tougher skin.

Just keep in mind that just don't take, just don't listen to people.

Keep doing what you want.

So let's talk about what people can do to take better photos.

So there's this term, elements of design.

Oh, yes.

Tell me what elements of design is and how we can use that to create more interesting photos.

So this is, in Photo Jam, we go through jam journeys and each week, the members will get a lesson and something, and then we present on Thursday nights, we meet for the jam.

But the elements of design was an entire journey that we went through, just looking at the elements of basically graphic design.

And that's, I'm going to miss one.

Shape and form, line, color, tone and value, space.

This is where the, since even though I'm an engineer, I'm not a photographer with technical experience, I start to go, I'm never going to get this.

So, let's just pick one of those, of that list.

And the most important one, and the easiest one for a beginner to use.

Color.

I mean, I don't know.

I don't know if it's even the most important, but color can do so much.

If you're shooting for color, you're, think about how color works.

It can make you happy.

It can make you feel calm.

It can really powerful emotions in color.

Shooting color can be very, very fun to play with because it has, it can bring out a lot of emotions in the viewer.

So if I wanted to, let's do happy and sad extremes.

Basically, if I was wanting to document something, maybe I'm feeling, maybe I'm feeling happy.

We'll go with the happy first.

Then I wouldn't go out at night time to take photos or I'd want brighter colors.

I'd want to go intentionally find brighter, maybe, no, or not.

Maybe.

So you always think, oh, yellow, yellow is a really happy color.

Then I had somewhere that yellow has a tendency to make people angry.

And it's also like an alert color.

We have the red light.

Call to action, like on a website.

Call to action, buy this now.

Amazon.

Yeah.

Oh, did I use yellow?

Orange and yellow, yeah.

So, I mean, yellow can also be a happy color.

It reminds you of the smiley face.

What else is yellow?

Some fruit, bananas, lemons, the sun.

We think of that as yellow.

It's one of the primary colors, red, yellow, and blue.

The engineer in me wants to go online and research colors and what they mean.

The guy who's like, that's not going to get to where you want because everyone's going to do that.

I had this idea just now.

Don't think about it.

Do what feels good.

Go with your camera, right?

And when you're going to take a photo, do I feel good about that color?

Like pay attention to color and go instead of intentionally, but when you look for yellow, intentionally think about color.

Keep the word color in your head.

And then just with the word focusing on the thought color, maybe take photos and go, I like that.

What color is it?

I mean, what color that is, but that's working.

Maybe it's something like that.

Something like that.

I mean, you can think, I'm going to do, I'm going to photograph yellow today.

And then you'll just wander through your day and you're going to see yellow everywhere because you manifest.

Oh, that sounds fun.

That sounds fun.

So that's what we do in the elements of Design Jam Journey.

We focus on, say, it's color.

It's like, okay, where am I seeing color?

Well, everywhere, right?

Where am I seeing lines everywhere?

And the more you look, the more you see leading lines.

I just thought of another one of them, pattern.

Everywhere you look, you'll see patterns.

I'm looking in front of me, I have a stack of books over there.

Pattern, pattern, pattern, pattern.

I have my guitar right in front of me, across the room, and it's the pattern of this dress.

Even my keyboard in front of me is like pattern of these little shapes.

So you see it everywhere and then capture it, how it feels lovely or beautiful to you.

And then, and then share it.

Share it with somebody.

Yeah, the sharing is the part, if you mean, if you take a photo and don't share, it's like you wrote a song and you never sing it for anybody.

You never go to open mic.

Yeah, who is it for yourself?

But then I know people who are afraid to post it, not just because of feedback or maybe it is.

What's your experience with the resistance to share photos?

Why people don't share them or are resistant?

I get it.

It's that vulnerability that people have of sharing.

And afraid people are going to think it's not good enough or not as good as somebody else.

And so that whole comparison thing and judgment, there's a lot of judginess out there.

And if you posted on Instagram or one of the socials, Instagram is a great visual.

I like Instagram because it is so visual.

I could just scroll through all day long and look at pictures.

But posting on Instagram, you know, what if no one likes it?

What if people, whatever.

You get no likes.

Yeah, you get no likes.

It's been up there.

But you also don't, you get no likes.

What a tragedy, not a tragedy.

You can delete your account, start all over a different handle, different name.

Yeah, yeah.

But you can share it with a friend or if you're lucky enough to have a creative group that shares together.

That's what Photo Jam is.

It's a group that will share photos and they give feedback.

How does this photograph make me?

The nice thing about Photo Jam is that when you share a photograph on Photo Jam, everyone talks about it, everyone gives their feedback, how it makes them feel what they see and what they like about photographs.

Nice.

And we don't necessarily know whose photograph it is.

The person whose photograph it is is muted, may not stay.

The person, I'm trying to picture this.

I post a photo.

And we'll mute you and we'll talk about your photo.

But then how will I get the feedback?

How do I get-

You're there, it's a Zoom call.

Oh, I listen.

Okay.

Yeah, you listen.

And you'll get the feedback.

And after a few minutes, then we will open your mic back up and probably ask you questions.

How did you get this?

What did you take?

Did you use your phone?

Did you use camera?

Whatever.

And then the author of the photograph is allowed to speak and reveal that it's their photograph.

So yeah, it's a little bit less anxiety producing there because you're not allowed to speak.

And I noticed that new people when they come, they want to say right away the first thing that someone says about it or they want to.

They want to defend it before they even give people a chance to say I like it.

Exactly.

It's like saying, you know, I don't have a good voice and I just learned guitar, but I'm going to do you a song.

Like you didn't need to tell me that.

It could be a great song.

Plus you're ruining it for me.

Like if you told me you're a beginner photographer, and then you tell me that, and then you show me the photo, and it's a great photo, subconsciously I'm going to be like, we can't be that good.

She's a beginner.

So you've kind of already implanted seeds in people's heads to pre, you know, to influence the feedback.

And it's because you're afraid, you know, you're afraid of.

So we don't have any of that.

We don't have any of that.

Because you mute them.

You got that covered.

Yeah, I try to understand why you mute them.

I get it now.

And the other thing is, I think if I'm, you know, from my speaking for myself, not in photos, but other creative stuff, you put stuff up, you get no likes.

Sometimes you feel bad, but the time you put it up and you get one like or two likes or three likes, people are like, I got three likes.

Why are you so excited?

I'm like, I got three likes.

Somebody likes my stuff.

If you never put it up, you can't get any likes or any feedback.

And it can be the same with putting a song on YouTube or putting out a podcast, right?

Yeah.

What if no one wants to listen?

Well, there'll be someone.

There's always someone that wants to listen, right?

And you have such a good content.

I really, I really love what you're doing with the-

Thank you.

It's good.

It's important.

So let's give them another tip.

Beginnings.

Negative space.

What is negative space?

Negative space is the space around the subject.

And we had a visual.

I'm such a visual person.

I wish I had.

Yeah, that's, well, that's like a song.

You tell someone's like, so what do you sound like?

What kind of music?

I'm like, you have to hear it.

Definitely a photograph.

You guys see the photo.

I take pictures of the buildings or landscape like, yeah, whatever, like desert landscape.

But like what a negative space, I think of the sky for some reason, like you have a blank sky.

So an example using the sky as negative space.

So I would say my tip about negative spaces to really embrace negative space and look at the negative space for what it offers the photograph compositionally.

How, what shape does it make?

And a nice example of negative spaces, like you're shooting something in silhouette.

And whatever the silhouette is, is your subject, right?

But then there's that beautiful space around your silhouette.

That is also part of the composition, and like everything in your frame is part of your composition.

So I would say negative space, just pay attention to it and make sure it's what you want to portray.

And sometimes it can even become your subject depending on how you use it.

So when you said silhouette, I'm trying to get a picture because I said sky.

Is it your shadow, like a building or a person's shadow?

It's usually when I have a picture in my head of someone like a sunset and people making that shadow shape in the sunset.

Do you get a visual there?

I didn't describe it.

A picture of sunset on the beach.

Yeah, but if someone is in between you and the sun, then you have that dark shape.

Oh, okay, because they're out of the lights behind them.

Yes.

So they're like, unless you have flashed their dark figure.

Right.

That against the negative space of the sunset.

The sunset.

And correct me or leave me if I'm not saying it right or I'm wrong.

But negative space sounds negative.

The space idea is everything else is a distraction.

You don't want distractions around your subject.

Right.

And if the person, the silhouette is the subject you want people's attention to focus on, in your photo, clearly has to have other stuff in it.

The negative stuff is what you really don't want.

You don't want the...

It's the lack of...

It's not having a distraction, but in a nice way.

So I think about a lot of photographs have some...

You know, the scene that I just described.

So we have the subject of, and then we have everything else, which is the negative space or the sunset.

But the sunset in itself is, can be a character in the composition.

So we have the subject, who is definitely the character of the composition against the backdrop of a sunset.

It's not a story.

It's...

There you go.

We have a little story.

We have two characters there, competing with each other in the comp, to be the compositional star of the show.

Right?

And so is it the sunset, or is it the silhouetted person, like me, or whatever.

So it really is, we go super mindful on each photograph that we share at Photo Jam, and we'll look at a photo.

And when you begin to look at a photo and stare at it, stare into it, it really becomes more with the viewing and the observation of a single photo.

Where if you're in a gallery or museum or an art show, you would just look at a painting, a photo, whatever, and move on to the next one.

And it really is about the whole vibe of the theme of the collection.

Yeah.

But you just give it a few seconds and then you move on.

But imagine if you stopped and just stared at one for five minutes.

Some people have done that to me in art galleries, paintings.

I'm not a big, I don't really appreciate it as others.

I'm like, what do you see, Daniel?

I'm like, um, it doesn't work for me that way, but I can wrap my head around a photograph a lot easier.

What do you see?

Well, I see this.

Do I see the sunset or the person first?

Yeah.

And maybe then if you're the photographer and someone says, I see the sun first, but you wanted them to see the people.

Maybe that will help you next time.

I wonder why they're looking at the sun instead of the people.

I mean, unless the sun was really neat and I didn't think about it.

And that's why I like the photo, which is okay.

I'll take the feedback.

I didn't know that when I took the photo, but I wanted to see the people.

I'm a photographer.

There's something very meditative about staring at art.

I mean, you can really go into it.

And depending on the piece, there could be maximalist, it could have lots of energy and lots of pieces to it, or it could be very minimalist and serene.

So, so much to find.

What about abstract photography?

And do you make a real clear distinction, like I'm gonna do abstract, make stuff look blurry, extreme, use filters versus I'm not gonna use abstract, like for songwriting, I'm not gonna use auto-tune deliberately, or do you ever get into that?

Like I'm just, yeah, tell me about abstract photography.

Yeah, we're actually going through an abstract journey right now, where every week we're doing, but every week we have some master photographer to represent.

And what we're doing in the abstract photography journey is we are looking at different movements of abstract photography.

So there's surrealism, constructivism, da da, abstract expressionism, minimalism.

So there's a lot to look at within those movements.

And then how do you get these?

How do you use?

What do they mean?

Surrealism.

What's surrealism?

Surrealism is like, I think of Salvador Dali and his artwork.

You think like the melting of the clock.

Do you know what I'm talking about when I say, I'm trying to think of someone really famous.

Dali is the most famous I could think of.

But surrealism is where the artist tries to give you a bit of imbalance or unease or some just take you off balance somehow.

And somehow, sometimes almost even sickening.

So not that it's trying to sicken you, but it just when you visually see it, you might feel a little dizzy or boozy.

Surreal, like surreal.

Is it hard to do?

Hard to do that on purpose?

Make a surreal photograph?

I think so.

But you can actually, we don't get into a lot of the post-processing stuff.

That's always an option.

But if you're walking down a street and there's a puddle on the street, you see the reflection in that puddle and how it kind of makes the reflection kind of wavy and watery.

That is the best way I can describe how to make a photo more surreal by abstracting it through a water or reflection.

So it's real.

It's just you don't know you're looking at a puddle up close.

And it looks surreal, but it is real.

It is real.

It's just the way you photographed it that is real.

So everyone is encouraged to, and I don't want anyone to just copy another artist's work.

I think everyone is encouraged to find their own voice.

Like how do you want to make this photograph?

How do you want to cause imbalance?

And then, and then your creative practice kicks in.

And the only thing I really say to people is I think people should walk, take a photo walk once a week, take an hour a week.

And how does that feel?

And just photograph whatever captures your attention, intuition.

Like, you know, you don't know why, but I think I'll take a photo of this and I think I'll take a photo of that.

And hopefully, they have the prompt from Photo Jam, you know, that they've just learned about surrealism and how that works, or Dadaism, or constructivism.

And they can say, oh, I see how this can create a constructivist composition or surreal composition.

But yeah, it's not anybody else's viewpoint.

It's only you, only you can see the way you see from the experiences and life that you've had.

It looks different to everybody else.

And if two people go on a walk together, or five people go on the same walk, you'd be amazed how everybody comes back with completely different...

What was important to them, what they believe on the tree of the birds, or the flowers, or the sky, or the mountains, or other people, or the ground.

Right.

And the way they see it.

So some people see it, like if you're taking a picture of a bird, some people zoom in really close and get that beat perfectly.

Some people want to see the tree that it's in.

Some people want to capture the color of the bird.

You know, it really is so individualized.

And that's what makes the tapestry so beautiful and rich.

Now, you mentioned the word composition, which is one I actually do remember in basic photography, which is, but I'm still a know consciously how to use it better.

So the idea composition is like the person in the sunset, the person, or it's the elements, right?

So meaning I don't want someone with their surfboard in the photograph.

That'd be distracting.

Talk to me about the composition, the elements, things if you don't know better to look out for like that, like what do you and do you not want in your photo?

You've locked in on the person in the sunset.

How do you make sure you get a good photo of the person in the sunset with that in mind?

Well, that's so subjective, right?

Is it a good photo?

How do you get a good photo?

But there are some compositional techniques to use, some rules to break.

So for example, the rule of thirds is a very common one where you break your composition up into like the two lines and two lines.

So it's-

Tic-tac-toe?

Boxes.

Yeah, the tic-tac-toe.

And so where those intersect, you can put an interesting element in that corner.

And this is so you're focusing on that rule of thirds, what's happening there.

And then there's the compositional, I mean, another technique you might use is symmetry.

So maybe you have everything right in the center.

And that's also a technique that breaks the rule of thirds rule.

But knowing that it is a rule, is helpful when you start out, like if you know the rules, you can know how to break them.

And we're actually going to be starting a compositional techniques journey and master photographer's journey.

I haven't really massaged it all the way out, but that's what the rules of third, say I was in the forest and I had three trees, I'd want to get three big trees, not four trees or if I had is, am I overthinking the rule of third?

So three, yeah, I mean, there's the rule of odds too, which is if you have a composition of, then you put in an odd number of elements, like you said, three trees or five trees.

If you have two trees or two trees, then you're looking at more balance.

It's less about the rule of odds, which is also a technique that you can use to make a visual more engaging.

What's the technique?

I'm just thinking about how to break it.

I guess I break this.

How do I break that rule right away?

Okay.

How do you?

The rule of odds, the rule of evens.

I don't know if that's rules.

There are no rules.

There's rules with no rules.

There are rules with no rules.

But if you have, I really am a big fan of center weighted, center focused things.

And that is oppositional to the rule of thirds.

What does center focused mean?

It stays in focus.

So center focus just meaning that surfer in front of the sunset is in the middle of your frame.

Oh, yeah.

Balance on each side.

Yeah.

For some reason, I've learned that one the hard way over the years too.

You put the person, well, it's like when you're making your avatar for Facebook or Instagram, your personal photo, right?

That's your face in the middle.

You put your face in the, you're the reason where they want your face on the profile.

Put your face in the middle.

If you're cropping a photo in, you're on the beach, you don't need to see the beach.

You need to see your face or put yourself in the center.

Yeah.

Or if you have your surfer on the right side, maybe in line with one of those rule of thirds lines, then you have this open negative space to the other side of them.

Then that open negative space becomes part of the composition and can really give a beautiful balance to like where the eye goes.

Does it go to that sunset or does it go to the surfer?

Which brought, like I say, if there was a line in the sand, somebody did it with a stick, some kid on the beach.

What's the thing in terms of, I learned this in climbing when people would show me good climbing photos, that you see how the rope goes diagonal and leads up to the climber, and then the rope disappears in the bottom of the photo, not straight down the middle of the photo, but down the left corner, like the leading, is that the line you're referring to?

So that we have, I mean, it's all of it, is all of it.

So that's one of the big elements of design, is the leading lines.

And so you can find a composition, it could be on Windy Road, it could be that one line, that perspective when you're looking and it zooms in to, you have to follow it.

You can't help it, it's like it's pointing to it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So as a photographer or an artist, you can place something at the end of that leading line, or that's the point of it.

You have your subject and then you create the lines leading the eye toward that.

And when you said road with the rope, it's not just a line.

It brings me to go climber climbing rope.

That's what keeps them from falling.

It's part of the story or the gets me engaged.

And when you say road, it's not just for trying to find a random line.

Whatever I'm guessing your subject is, someone holding a map or stopped in a car or on the side of the road.

You wrote probably part of the story in the leading, it's not just a leading line, it's leading story or leading part theme or something, right?

You're getting it, Daniel.

I'm trying.

That's it.

I mean, you're a more of a, you're a song singer, songwriter, right?

Is that your creative practice?

Is that where you find your flow?

Yeah, you know, this is really hard to learn songs, actually.

I couldn't write them and it's beating my head for years.

Until I found one piece of advice I give people, I finally find an expert, somebody real good to which not to plug Photo Jam intentionally here, but if there's experts you can find, you don't have to pay.

They love to teach people, I'm guessing Photo Jam might be a place.

I'm meeting you here, right?

Yeah.

Well, Photo Jam.

Yeah.

So back to songwriting.

But people can come and check it out.

There are lots of free lessons there.

And yes, you can get expert feedback at Photo Jam.

Expert feedback.

So, and I guess also I'm a good expert or I'm just lucky.

And then they explain basic.

Writing a song is like writing a story.

And they broke it down for me, like, where are you now?

That's the first verse.

Where are you going?

That's the next verse.

And then the last part is, what if it doesn't work out?

What will you do then?

And if the story was like, the lights turned on, I'm like, I can do that.

I can write a song.

But no one had told me that before.

I thought you just sat down and wrote a song like Paul McCartney, which is kind of not true.

So maybe with the photos, it's the same thing.

People think, oh, you know, if I just go out and I'm not good at this, I just go out, I take photos and they're not good.

You know, no expert just did that and was a genius.

It was a work in progress, right?

And someone taught them, they had to learn.

There's some structure.

So you were given the structure of a song.

And I'm kind of inspired by that because it's like a story, right?

You have your beginning, your middle, and then what do they say in the story?

The denouement and the climax, right?

Whatever.

And so you have that same structure in the story.

At Photo Jam, you are given a structure, you're given something every week to put your artwork into, like how am I saying that?

To kind of create around or to give you some guidelines.

When you mentioned, when you fed it back to me that way, I thought came into my mind that maybe this, I'm wondering if you could apply this to photography.

So you have the basics in a song, you're happy or sad, and you have the basic story.

But what I heard you kind of hint at is in a song, what's going to happen next?

We're not sure.

That's why you sing this.

Happy birthday would be boring.

It's over.

What's the song about?

It's like the angst or what's happened.

So I'm wondering when I think about it, if you took a good photo, you get the main gist, but then like maybe what's happening next?

Why this person take this?

Like you see, maybe if your composition is somebody sitting on the steps crying outside the courthouse, and then you have the courthouse and the person, those are your subjects, but something else is like, what's next for them?

Why are they crying?

In addition to that, an emotion, an emotion triggers an emotion.

Right.

But another interesting thing that I see a lot is people will bring us a, will present a photo and submit a photo, and it will get looked at, and they have no intentionality of any story.

The author of the photograph has no intentionality for the story.

They're just like, I just thought it looked cool.

Right.

But yeah, a lot of good photos like that.

Cool.

The audience viewing it will see so much.

And so it's almost like the photograph becomes richer the more you look at it and you see, how this is really a powerful photograph.

I just thought it was because I thought it looked cool.

So if you learn some basic skills and you're walking down with a photo and you see the sad person sitting on the court steps and you're like, this is going to be, you will also have the technical skills.

We talked about with my songwriting, not technical, but you understand how songs are written or whatever.

And you rule thirds and your composition and your color.

But wait a minute, I got that.

And what about color?

How could I use that here?

Because I got the idea like I'm going to really kill it.

I'm going to really make it great here.

A few things that could have it all, have both.

If you have a few basic skills.

I just be like, where am I going to place this person in my, in the frame?

But does the person crying on the courthouse steps, do you see the steps?

Or is it just a close up of the face?

How do you use your visual voice to tell that story?

And how would you do that?

Think about how would you get inspiration to do that?

I'd pay for inspiration to do that.

I mean, I just see, I can see so many different variations of that.

You described it beautifully.

And I sort of had a visual of it in my head, but every person comes with their human experience of where they've been, what they've seen, what they like, and how they look at that photograph, how they look at that scene.

So some people may put Zoom out and have the person on the steps as a smaller element of the whole composition.

Some people might zoom right in on that person, and that would fill the fray.

Some people might maybe take a photograph of their hands wearing over something.

That's what I was thinking.

Maybe the hands, the Zoom.

And then when you mentioned zooming out and they're smaller in the picture.

At first, I'm like, well, you're making them less important.

And then what came to my mind and my feeling was, they're just, that's the whole idea.

Who cares about those little people in the photo?

There's all this other stuff going on in the world, and those sad people, does anyone care about them?

So, by just doing that simple thing, zooming out or zooming in, and zooming in could be the hands, oh, they're actually praying, right?

And then come think of it, you, they're all good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's all, it doesn't, you can't judge it.

Like, it's like, the thing that Photo Jam is different from a camera club, because when you go to a camera club, there are lots of camera clubs.

First of all, they all contest, like, they have blue ribbons, and first place, second place, and they're judging, and there's always someone that loses there.

But I look at those photos, I'm like, how can you tell me that it should be cropped a different way because it's cropped that way?

This is how I cropped it.

This is how you can't say it should be cropped a different way because it's already done and it's already cropped.

This is because they, if they took the photo, they would have cropped it.

Now, I would say, well, write your own song and then sing your own song, man.

The same love song or whatever.

Yeah, this is my song.

Yeah.

And there's lots to learn from other songwriters, right?

Like you can share your songs with other songwriters and other singers and you have a lot to learn from them.

But I'll add real quick, never, yes, other pros, other professionals that you can learn from, never share your song.

And maybe this is true for photos too.

Don't ask your best friend, your family, somebody really close.

Because the reason is, well, I guess you could because I was going to say, they should be like non-subjective.

Everyone feels different about something.

But my experience, for whatever reason, they don't mean to, but they'll always come off as a bit judgy.

I don't know why that is.

They don't mean to, but it's not a good, it's not productive.

And oh, you know what it is, is because if they say they don't like it, they can't tell you why.

It could be they don't like that kind of music.

But let's say it's music or photo.

You're telling them because you really want some constructive feedback.

Okay, it's a work in progress.

How can I make it better?

But they'll just tell you, well, why don't you write country instead of rock or just give up or why don't like, they can't give you anything except they didn't like it, which is just not helpful.

Yeah.

So I never do that.

Yeah, you need to have someone who's going to give you constructive, not just opinions.

One idea that came to me is because what I'll do with songs, I'll play them out in public.

To have it go over.

Exactly.

And so I'll play it and people, it takes, even Bob Dylan was never a big fan of his.

He was like, you critics should just once, once try to do what I do.

You put your heart, blood, and soul into a song.

And then you go out and play it and you just get crucified.

Once I would like to see you just do that and take, and of course, a lot of them are great songs.

So what I just came to think with photographs, is maybe sharing with strangers, people who don't know you at all, is best because then you just get rid of that kind of subjectivity.

Oh, so back to the songs.

I will not say, like you mentioned, muting people.

I will not, I will just be still and quiet after I play and listen for applause or reaction.

If it's dead silence, I don't need to work on that song and I'll play it again.

And here's the really tough part.

The really tough part is I practiced it, I tweaked it, I'm going to play it again.

And if it's still dead.

Yeah, it's good, man.

Like sounds not work.

I don't know what it is.

I like song.

It's just, but the other half of the time or more, because I won't do it until I feel it's ready.

Like I wouldn't put a photograph out just unless I really felt.

I wouldn't give anybody asks anybody for feedback unless I really thought it was my best.

And I'm like really ready.

And there are times when I do and there's there's applause.

I'll go, wow, people like that song.

Like, well, I don't get it.

Okay, fine.

I didn't even think that was good.

I wasn't even going to play it.

And then you do it again, you get it.

And you're like, that's, that's, that's, I don't know why, but that's resonating with people.

So it's try, it's just, you got to have vulnerability and do it and...

Yeah, and it's worth it to have that vulnerability because you learn so much.

And Photo Jam does not look for things that are bad or negative.

They always look for strengths because we believe in finding in your visual voice what is your strong point and amplifying your strengths.

So when you do your next photograph or your next photo walk, and you're looking for the same things, you think, I'm really good at leading lines.

I'm really good at color.

And I know that because it was proven to me at Photo Jam in the last photograph that I've had, they really liked how I kept the color.

And you might amplify that, and that might become part of your visual voice.

But what your strengths are, are what become amplified.

And that hones your mark on the visual world and your art.

And same with the songwriting.

Like imagine if you had a place where you could put a song out, no one knew it was yours, and just got raw feedback on that song.

And then they, you know, and they looked for what was strong about it.

And you got that feedback.

How would that feel?

Yeah.

You learn like you save strengths.

Like what is, can I sing high notes or low notes or pass songs are slow and what's working for me and what's not?

And you can always be stubborn and stick to you what you like even if it's not your strength.

But if your purpose is really to inspire and communicate and, you know, lift people up and with your art, then you probably want to go with what people are going.

You're really, you're really good at that, you know.

Take more landscape photos, whatever reason you take good landscape photos, who would have thought?

And yeah, I like taking landscape photos.

Thanks.

Yeah.

I was going to take more of many hounds to the buildings, but I thought people like buildings more, so I started getting to taking pictures of buildings.

If I knew you would like landscape photos, I'd love to take landscape photos and I'm good at it.

I'll do it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's just some professional photographers get stuck in a rut of what pays the bills.

And so they end up doing a lot of headshots or, you know, and that's like, you know, you can do that by rote.

You know, it's easy.

It's not easy.

You have to have the right lighting, whatever.

But if you are going down a creative path with your photography, it just becomes a lot more, you know?

If somebody feels stuck, you know, that happens with me songs, it happens with any artistic work.

For photography, what do you recommend they do?

Like, you know, I've been there, done it, and I never do anything interesting.

People don't love my photos or I'm just getting bored.

How do they get out of that rut?

So yeah, the mental block of being stuck in a, I have a great answer for that.

But right in front of me, have you heard, have you heard of the Oblique Strategies?

The Brian Eno, Brian Eno, well he, Brian Eno, I didn't know him until U2.

He produced all of U2's albums.

Oh, Coldplay, big Coldplay producer, turned Coldplay into who they are.

And then his backstories, he was a piano player and kind of a, what kind of music did he do?

Anyway, he's a very creative type.

I have not heard about, what's this called again?

He and Peter Schmidt wrote this.

They created these oblique strategies.

Oblique strategies.

It's like from the 70s, I think.

And they, like when you get stuck or when you need some creative boost, it's these, they call them 100 worthwhile dilemmas.

And it's cards.

And I share these all the time.

I let people pick them.

It's like a deck of cards.

It's like a deck of cards.

And it has all these.

So you're stuck in your songwriting.

You don't know what to do.

You're like, what should I do here?

I'm going to pick a card for you.

Tell me when.

Tell me when I went.

When.

Discard an axiom.

What is an axiom?

Discard.

An axiom is one of those brain synapse things.

Oh, good.

I have to Google.

What is it?

What's axiom?

I don't know.

I think of an axiom like the brain fire.

But I could be wrong.

Oh, yeah.

The brain learns.

It's a hypothetical elementary particle theorized in 1978.

Hypothetical?

Maybe it's get rid of a hypothetical.

What if?

Man, these guys are deep.

Right?

Okay.

Here's another one.

But I'm on to it.

Get rid of a what if.

Well, anyway, that's what.

Be extravagant.

Okay.

I can wrap my head around that one here.

So I think these are like, I think of them as like co-ons for the creatives.

So a co-on.

He was holding up another card, by the way.

So the second card said be extravagant.

Yeah.

For those who can't see.

Here's another one.

Another card.

Try faking it.

That's my favorite.

Try faking it.

So I think of these, the Buddhist co-on is just like a something you ruminate over a saying or a phrase, or something you can just think about and turn around in your head.

So I think of these as like creative co-ons that when you get stuff, or if you're just starting, and you don't know how to get started, or don't know how to finish, then you take one of the starts and it's very fun for me.

Well, what came to mind with the photos is, now that I understand what axiom is, I can go out and try to photo physicist or axiom, literally go or the what if, I could go to try to take my camera, walk down the street and think of, I'm going to take photos of what ifs.

I love that.

That's beautiful.

Be extravagant.

That's probably straightforward.

What was the third card we just pulled?

Try faking it.

Yeah, faking it.

So, go walk down with your camera and look for things that are faking it, a fake tree.

Yeah, there's one at the Chinese restaurant I went to the other day, all the ink flowers, and it's in the desert, and I'm like, that tree is real.

And people are like, no, it's fake.

So, what we do, go over and pick one, look at one of the leaves, and I go over and touch the leaves on the tree.

It is a fake tree, it turns out.

That's why the leaves are perfect and pink, and it's 108 degrees out.

But yeah, the fake tree was so real, it had all these fake leaves on the ground.

From being in the sun, getting beat up, falling off of it.

Yeah.

But pulling that card, that would have been what I did that day.

I would have been out of mine, and a lot of abstract art would come out of that.

This was a fake tree, so game on.

So that was just putting it together.

Yeah.

And I don't know the whole story, Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt got together and made these cards.

Who is Peter?

Peter Schmidt was a visual artist, and I'm not sure of his biography, but I know him from the Oblique Strategies.

Oblique Strategies.

I don't know where I found these.

Oh, they're out of print.

I think so, yeah.

There's probably something similar to them though, or you could make your own flashcards or boxes.

There's a creative activity.

That's right.

But I reach for those a lot.

They're fun.

Seems like it's really fun.

I want to do it.

Like this conversation is really fun.

So is there anything else you can think of that, you know, if you come on Photo Jam, your service or tips for beginner, for photographers, anything come to mind?

So if I were giving advice to a photographer starting out and just wanting to be creative, or someone having any creative practice, I would say just do it, keep doing it.

And don't be afraid to share your work, whether it's at Photo Jam and you're getting feedback there or if you must on the social media.

Although that can make you feel bad.

Don't look for validation on social media.

But you would encourage people to get on Instagram.

I don't know.

I would encourage.

Yeah, because I think that the social media is a tough one.

Well, let me back up then and ask it this way.

What do you think about Instagram?

I love hate Instagram because I like it because it's such a dominant visual thing.

And so I just look at beautiful photography all day long and get lost in that rabbit hole.

But I also feel like if I'm putting my stuff out there to try to get a million likes, then I think I'll just be broken hearted.

And I think a lot of-

That's always a bad thing to do, people.

Never do it to get liked.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do it because you want to share it, but don't mind the likes or-

Don't do it because you want something from somebody.

Don't do it.

Yeah.

You're doing it.

I would say you should get a group of creative friends and have a regular practice of sharing and giving feedback.

When I write a song and I play it in public, it's never about me.

It's always about this person that I'm teaching now, and he's doing great.

He didn't know how to play the guitar or write a song.

And so sometimes it wasn't the best.

But he finally got a couple of songs he could go with, like a slow song, a fast song, a rock song.

And I would explain them, it's not about what you want to do.

What's the vibe?

Is it a coffee shop?

Is it a morning?

Is it going to be a little energetic?

Or is it a nighttime in a bar that we're playing, we're going to do?

You want to amp it up?

Not about you, man.

So with the photos, I'm not a photographer myself, really.

But if I was posting, I'd do the same thing.

I'm like, I'm going to post it.

Why am I doing it?

Yeah, is it to make somebody's day and make them smile?

Or is it back to the person crying on the courthouse steps?

Is it to show me I'm not alone in the world?

Because I got this photo that's zoomed out and shows this little person.

What are you trying to inspire and encourage uplift?

Or if you're the type that wants to do violence and inject that kind of stuff into our world, well, then fine, no judgment.

But don't post it just because, see the cool blood and guts, what do I post it?

Don't you want to like it?

Like, yeah, right?

I don't think you can go wrong if you have the intention of, it's not about me, it's about, yeah, I mean, I do have the gift for photography.

I'm an amazing photographer.

Yeah, I stroke my ego, but I don't need that.

I'm doing this for the community, for the people, right?

Okay.

So Instagram, the reason I asked you is because my brother's a photographer and I keep trying to, when are you going to get your handle?

When are you going to post your stuff?

And he's a great photographer, by the way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's good.

He's been carrying a camera around like he is since when we were kids.

Long before we could drive, our mom would drop us off in the mountains and my thing was hiking.

So we'd have the dog and he does camera, the old Pentax or whatever it was, backpack, real film.

Yeah.

So I keep trying to get him on Instagram.

Because that's all I know.

I mean, or seems to be the median, he keeps resisting.

So maybe I'll slow it.

Maybe I'll pull back on my pushing.

So besides Photo Jam, any other ideas in terms of the digital space?

The digital space.

Yeah.

Well, I can say one thing I see about Instagram is, when you start posting your photos on your Instagram page, it really, after a while, you really see a comprehensive picture of somebody.

It's like you can scroll through, and if it's all pictures of someone's dog, right?

Then it's all about the dog.

Dog does this cute, dog does that cute.

Or if it's all about art, like you really kind of get a visual vibe about a person from their Instagram feed.

And you can check out Photo Jams, Photo Jammers is the handle for Instagram.

And you can look at all the photos that have been posted on Photo Jammers and get a vibe about the group, about the way you look at things.

It's very diverse.

And that's how that it kind of represents that tapestry.

You know, it is the tapestry, those photos that are on our Instagram page.

You see the diverse.

When you mention it that way, maybe think about song writing.

If I was to get into photography, I think I would I would try this too.

People ask me what kind of music I play.

And what depends on the song?

Full crop, happy, sad.

What am I feeling?

So now that you put it and mention that, I think I'd approach it.

I don't want people to see a bunch of dogs.

I love my dog.

Everyone does.

Could I take pictures of different people's dogs?

Maybe my site's called Dogs.

People look like their dogs.

And I have five on my own dog, five on my own dog.

And then I have a person, a picture of the person, and then their dog, and then the mother.

That's, you know, and then it's fun, right?

You could go, look, look, look at that dog, and there's dog for everybody.

Or you have the free portrait, like now if you're doing a page, you have the portrait, and then you have to slide to see what kind of dog they have.

But if you just look at the portrait, you might be able to guess.

Yeah, right.

You've heard that.

You've seen that.

This is the idea, meaning it's about as an artist, you're doing it for the person, not yourself.

Whatever, you know, when you, whatever you do, it's about making somebody else have a feeling, not what you like to look at.

I mean, they're both okay, but I personally get more joy out of seeing how someone reacts positively or whatever to my creativity, than just, oh, you're good or whatever, yeah.

Nice.

Well, the Photo Jam is pretty easy website to remember, photojam.net.

That's right.

And it will be in the show notes, and there's the lessons there in the community, and it looks like it's a quiz.

It says, what kind of abstract photography are you?

Oh, that's just a fun little quiz.

Yeah, there is a quiz.

Check it out.

Anything else?

There's lots of free stuff you can do on Photo Jam in the Learn section.

You can go in and take free mini course or free mini lesson.

But check it out.

It's a lot of fun.

Awesome.

It feels good.

Thanks, Molly.

I really appreciate you being on my show.

I'm so glad you reached out.

Thank you, Daniel.

I learned a little bit of stuff about photography and good conversation creatively.

A lot about the creative practice and how song writing and photography and all the arts, they can give it to you.

Yeah.

And what's next for you?

And in Photo Jam or both?

What are you up to next?

Well, right this week, we're working on constructivist photography.

And next week is Dada.

Dadaism.

I don't know either one of those.

We're moving through the moves.

That's why you go.

You go, you'll find out.

You go, you'll find out.

Thanks, Molly.

Thank you.

Have a great day.

All right.

See ya.