013: Learning to Fail Forward And Taking Risks

[00:00:00] Mica: Welcome. To the 13th episode of The Savory Shot. I'm your host who loves the roast.

I wanted to try something new. It didn't work out. Y'all know who I am. My name is Mica. I'm your host.

I want to start the show by saying thank you for being here. You could have been anywhere, doing anything, but you're here with me and that means a lot. So thank you.

Y'all. If you listened to the last episode. Then you know, that I had the amazing opportunity to speak with Addie Broyles, food writer, extraordinaire. It was such a deep, deep, deep, deep conversation. About what it means to be a creative in this day and age. And how her time with the Austin American statesman prepared [00:01:00] her for the freelance world as an artist, tarot reader and writer.

If you didn't, listen to that episode. Please go back and check it out. And don't forget to subscribe to Addie's newsletter the Feminist Kitchen. And if you're interested in a tarot reading, visit her website, www.dontfearthedeathcard.com. But y'all. I'm just totally jazzed about today's episode.

Today's guest is Frank Curry. Frank is not a food photographer. But he is a photographer and educator in Austin, Texas. Before transitioning to teaching full time, he ran a commercial photography studio for 25 years. Fun fact y'all. Frank was one of my professors at Austin Community College. And he is one of [00:02:00] my favorite people ever.

He is so inspiring and he keeps it real and he gave me the best advice ever that convinced me to pursue food photography full time. This is going to be an amazing conversation that will get you thinking about what it means to be an artist in the digital age and how technology has changed the way we make art and look at art.

We're going to talk about the business of photography and the future of photography. But before we get into that. Let's start the show.

[00:03:00]

[00:03:13] Mica: I want to start off by saying thank you so much for being a guest on the Savory Shot. I'm super duper excited that you're here.

[00:03:24] Frank: Oh, it's my pleasure. I'm glad I'm here as well.

[00:03:26] Mica: I wanna start this off with asking you, you are an artist, photographer, and professor. How do these three roles intersect?

[00:03:38] Frank: Well, they're all around the same topic. Certainly. I think the best way to say they intersect is, is the level of failure perhaps that they permit. A commercial photographer has to have a shot done by 6:00 PM. There's no room for anything, but what you said you'll do, even if you think it's better. [00:04:00] An instructor.

Yeah. You can go in and suggest to a student, I think you should try and light it like that and say, Well, that was a bad idea. Whose idea was it? And all the students look around and it was like, that was your idea. And an artist, you're generally there just wallowing in your own, I don't know what I'm doing, which is very, very different.

So it all has to do with the degrees of failure that you're allowed in those.

[00:04:25] Mica: I love what you said about failure and you are so right. In a commercial shoot, you have to have the sure thing, there's no room for error and when you do your portfolio work, that's the time to fail. When you're in school, that's the time to fail. How do you encourage your students to fail?

[00:04:46] Frank: It's a bit difficult and I call myself on it and it's like, that was a stupid idea. That was a bad idea. And they're like, Wow, you can say that? Yes. About your own stuff and [00:05:00] recognize it and I tell them, You need a plan B, but you need a plan C and D. And I've been on shoots where I've done plan E and just have those ready.

One thing I learned early on as a commercial photographer is only try to fix things. I give it five attempts. Oh, that's not working. Let's try this. Okay, that doesn't work. And I'll do it five times. And after five I scratch it.

[00:05:22] Mica: After five?

[00:05:24] Frank: You're just not gonna fix it.

[00:05:25] Mica: Makes sense. Have you ever been in a situation like that during a commercial shoot where you are at the fifth time and you're like, Okay, something else.

[00:05:34] Frank: Oh yeah. I'm, I remember one in particular, I was photographing this woman for Whole Foods and she said, Oh, I never get a photograph of me taken that's any good. And I said, Why is that? And she said, I'm always blinking. My eyes are always closed. So I, with a little bit of pride, said, Well, I'm a commercial photographer.

I can get a photo of you with your eyes open. Well, she was one of these people [00:06:00] who blinked really fast, and every single shot I'd take was her, with her eyes closed. And I couldn't get one. It was with a flash. And so finally I said, You know, this just isn't working. Let's get you to some natural light where you won't blink at the flash.

I didn't say that, and I might be able to get a photo of you with your eyes open. I couldn't believe it.

[00:06:22] Mica: Oh my gosh. That is brilliant. That is brilliant. I actually had that very same problem with a chef who kept blinking his eyes over and over and over. I did not put him in natural light. I just flashed the heck out of it. And I'm like, one of these is gonna be with his eyes open, but I like your idea.

That's a lot more logical and so much smarter. Have you always wanted to be a photographer or did you fall into it?

[00:06:51] Frank: I, I just couldn't stop doing it. It was interesting. I remember complaining to my brother-in-law once, back when I was just starting [00:07:00] out and I thought, I should have chosen long ago to do something that was easier and more rewarding financially. I don't know why I chose to be a photographer.

I was just lamenting it all. And he said, Frank, you choose it every single day you wake up. You could do something else. Wake up one day and say, That's it. I'm not gonna do it. And you don't. So you choose it, not just once when you graduated, you chose it every single day. And he was right.

[00:07:30] Mica: I love that you choose it every single day. Social media has such a unique way or just obvious way of showing just the highlight reels and I'm like, show me the rough days, because those are the days that I make a conscious effort to be a photographer.

Those are the days where it's really easy to walk away and be like, I don't wanna do this anymore. Choosing every single day to be a photographer. Were there ever any days where you were really [00:08:00] close to walking away from that choice?

[00:08:02] Frank: Mmm. No, because I was fortunate cuz I had no other talents. I couldn't do anything else. Well, like what am I gonna do? I remember when I opened my studio and my dad is helping me paint it and he was like, I can't believe you're just gonna open a studio. You just moved to Austin.

How do you know it's gonna succeed? And it's like, I have no other choice but to make it succeed. What am I gonna do? Play professional basketball.

[00:08:28] Mica: So no backup plan. Just this studio.

[00:08:37] Frank: No,

[00:08:39] Mica: That is such a big risk. That's a huge risk. I, Wow. I, yeah, that's a huge risk. Were you scared?

[00:08:49] Frank: No. I had no other choice. I studied photography in school. I mean, what else could I do?

[00:08:58] Mica: That's so [00:09:00] interesting. Do you think people operate differently if they have a backup plan versus those who don't?

[00:09:07] Frank: Absolutely. You find out what you can do and what you can do well, and you should. If you're gregarious and you're a people person and you wanna do that, you can tend bar and probably do a good job. You can also be a person photographer. It's kind of like tending bar.

You sit there, you listen, you do a little work in between. You say, Excuse me, I'm still listening. When you're trying to figure something else out. I had a, an assistant who could do a lot, and he had his choice of everything he could do. He had a hard time choosing between where his love was, photography and many other things that he could have done.

[00:09:45] Mica: I've noticed that when you operate from the point of view, like you have nothing else to lose, like this is it. That is where you are more willing to fail and fail [00:10:00] again because there is nothing else to fall back on. So you're gonna keep coming back, you're gonna keep trying, keep putting yourself out there because this has to work, versus, Oh, well, you know, I can go get a job and do this instead.

It's just easier to call it a day, if you will. What do you think about that?

[00:10:22] Frank: I think it's true. I remember when I was in, in college and I thought I'd get a job, being a waiter, and I didn't get hired. And I was like, Who doesn't get hired to be a waiter? I mean, they needed people. And they're like, I don't think you're right for this. Okay.

[00:10:46] Mica: That's really funny.

[00:10:47] Frank: I mean, I, and I don't wanna denigrate any waiters out there, but.

[00:10:53] Mica: Waiting is actually a really hard job. I, I was, I was fired from waiting. I just wasn't [00:11:00] good at it. They're like, I don't think you're cut out for this.

[00:11:03] Frank: I didn't even get to try.

[00:11:09] Mica: Do you remember the moment when you realized that photography was going to be a big part of your life?

[00:11:14] Frank: Yeah, I just kept heading in that direction, I just kept not doing anything else. I once applied for a job as a photo researcher. Didn't get that. It was like, I thought I'd be good at that. I applied for a job working at a bookstore. I, I know how to read and didn't get that.

And every time I would apply for a job around photography, I got hired. So I was like, well, either the bar is really low, in this, or I know what I'm doing.

[00:11:47] Mica: It's great that every road led to photography. If that's not a sign that this is what you should be doing, then I don't know what is.

[00:11:56] Frank: Yeah.

[00:11:57] Mica: It took me a hot minute to figure out [00:12:00] photography was what I should be doing. I was fired from my first adult job and my boss was like, You are creative and you should be doing something creative.

This is not for you. He's like, I'll tell you what, if you ever wanna go to LA, I will buy your plane ticket. And it's a one way ticket. So, you know, And he's like, Just tell me and I will get you the plane ticket. And I thought, Okay, yeah, I'm gonna do it. Let me get my ducks in a row, I'll do it. And then I chickened out and I was like, I'm not doing it.

[00:12:33] Frank: Hmm.

[00:12:34] Mica: Everything led up eventually to something creative. It's like every job I had, I was okay at it, but it was a miserable existence. It wasn't until I embraced the fact that, okay, I am a creative and I need to find a career that is a creative career. Otherwise I'm just gonna keep working these unhappy jobs for the rest of my life.

And what kinda life is that? That's not really a life [00:13:00] whatsoever. What do you think you would be doing if you weren't a photographer?

[00:13:05] Frank: Well, in my years of having a family and living by myself and every permutation of that, I started cooking and I think I can cook now. So I would probably, although I think it's creative, I would probably be cooking, farming, something like that again, creative, working with my hands.

[00:13:25] Mica: That would be super cool. Curry Restaurant Incorporated. What was it like to be a photographer when you first started out? What was the world like at that time?

[00:13:37] Frank: I started out when it was film. First I started working in a lab, processing film for a portrait photographer, and I didn't care for that. I moved to Boston and started working for a commercial photographer processing film four by five e six film, a sync line, a handline.

You had to be accurate within five seconds, and you couldn't be more than a quarter of a degree [00:14:00] off.

And I would run three sync lines runs a day. He shot four by five and it was a great job. He was a great guy. He had big clients, like Reebok, and we do a lot of their things. And it was very technical.

I mean, it was very, very hard to do. Anyone with a camera couldn't just do it. Focusing was hard, metering was hard, lighting was hard, all of it. So I, I learned that and then I took those and then, moved to Austin and just started working . I started working as an assistant. I realized I could either work as an assistant and make a 10th of what I was making as a photographer, or work as a photographer. So I just did the numbers. It's like, I got an assisting job. Either get nine more of those or go out and get one job where you're shooting.

[00:14:48] Mica: Yeah. Makes sense to me.

[00:14:50] Frank: Well, that's the nice thing about money.

It keeps track. You look at it and you look at where that decimal point is, and it tells you a lot about how you're [00:15:00] doing. You don't need to ask someone. It's like, do I have money or do I not have money? There. That's how you're doing.

[00:15:10] Mica: When digital came out, were you an early embracer of that?

[00:15:15] Frank: Oh. I, I have a story about that. I was showing my book to a potential client. And she said, This is really good work. And I said, Oh, thank you. She said, We have a shoot coming up. This was a Monday on Thursday and it has to be done by Friday. I'd love to do stuff, but with times, development times, getting it all done processed and stuff, there's no way we'll be able to do it and get it done in time.

We're just gonna use stock photography. And I said, Well, it can be done digitally. And she said, You have a digital camera? And I said, Yeah, absolutely. And she said, Okay, let's shoot Wednesday. This is like Monday. I left that meeting and I quickly [00:16:00] got online to B & H and looked up digital cameras. I didn't have one.

[00:16:06] Mica: Wait, wait, wait, wait. You didn't have a digital camera?

[00:16:10] Frank: No.

[00:16:14] Mica: Frank.

[00:16:16] Frank: This was the early days and so I found the first digital camera that was available. This is when they were just coming out and then had it FedExed and on the way to the shoot, I'm reading the manual. I had never, my first, very first digital shoot, I was shooting jpegs cuz I didn't know. I think I shot it on Program cuz I didn't know how to use it.

And I'm

[00:16:36] Mica: My God.

[00:16:38] Frank: And I'm reading the manual. I ask my assistant to drive and I'm reading the, I say, I think I got it. Okay, let's go. We shot it got. Done. I hit exposures. I didn't do any post processing cuz I didn't know how. And then delivered the files and they were like, These are great.

[00:16:57] Mica: Oh.[00:17:00] So you didn't have a digital camera.

[00:17:03] Frank: I lied.

I said I did.

[00:17:07] Mica: And you went out and bought one. How did you do that without your eyes twitching and your nose growing?

[00:17:14] Frank: It wasn't the first time I did it. I'd order cameras before shoots all the time. I ordered a four by five that way. I ordered a lens and I'm unwrapping the lens as I'm getting ready to the shoot. Yeah. Never having shot it.

[00:17:27] Mica: Wow. That's a risk right there too.

[00:17:31] Frank: Sure.

[00:17:34] Mica: I don't know if I'd be able to do that. I would shit my pants. I would shit my pants. Do you think photographers should take risks like that?

[00:17:44] Frank: Yes, I do. Because if you don't, you think, Oh, I'll, I'll do this when I'm ready. It's like what people say when they wanna have kids. Oh, I'll have kids when I'm ready. Uh, [00:18:00] you're never ready. They're always a surprise. You don't know what to do.

[00:18:04] Mica: I agree with you. I agree with you. If you wait until you're ready, it's just never gonna happen. You often said in class that you should do things even if you're not ready. You don't know what's gonna happen until you do It

It could go good, it could go bad. You just don't know. But at least at the end of it all, you will know. How do you encourage your students to take risks like that?

[00:18:31] Frank: I show them and sometimes they'll say it in class and they'll say, Wouldn't this work? And I say, I don't know, but the only thing you have to do is be right. And believe me, I will tell you if you're not. And so they think, I'm pretty sure I'm right. It's like, Go for it.

[00:18:51] Mica: I wanna dive into your teaching. You've been at ACC since 1995, is that correct?

[00:18:58] Frank: Yeah, I think that's right.

[00:18:59] Mica: [00:19:00] So what keeps you coming back to teach?

[00:19:02] Frank: At, at this point, I, I think my car just drives itself to the parking lot and then I get out. I've been doing this a long time. Honestly, I see it when, when students, when they change. I see it when they realize, Oh, photography is, is just taking pictures. And, and then they see it and they're, they think, Oh no, it's a whole language. It has a syntax, it has a context, it has a grammar, and either I can just go ahead and blurt out a bunch of words.

Or I can write a poem or I can write prose and it matters. And people who, who see it and know it, know when it's good and you'll know when it's good. It's fun to be a novice at it. But when you take out someone's cell phone camera, they go, Can you take a picture of us? And you wipe the thumbprint off the lens and you move them until they [00:20:00] get good light and you move in closer and you say, Okay, there now, uh, look at me.

Yeah, great, great. And you do this whole thing and they see the result with the same camera that they were doing. You think, Oh, I know a little about this.

[00:20:15] Mica: It's so funny that you mention about cell phone pics because Sunday I was photographing an Oktober Fest event and one of the guests saw me with my camera and they flagged me down and they're like, Hey, can you take a picture of us?

They handed me their phone and I did all the things that you just mentioned. And I handed the phone back to them and their minds were blown. They were like, Wow, how did you do that? My pictures don't look anything like that.

It's amazing what you could figure out when you know what you're doing. And they think you're like waving a wand and it's like Houdini Magic and you're like, No, not quite. What is your approach to teaching?

[00:20:55] Frank: Well, I, uh I try to be perpetually [00:21:00] ignorant and endlessly curious. I'm really curious about how I've done things and, and how I've done things in the past and understand those, but curious on how I can do them better. I'm really interested in how things work and, and how the way we think we see is very different from the way we actually see. We think we see with our eyes and we are really seeing with our brain, and our brain is making sense of these things.

And, it's always interesting to see that. This is why magicians can do slight of hand tricks because you think you're seeing something and they're doing this and they're like, You're just following whatever's moving. And if my hand is moving over there, you're gonna look at that and I'm gonna do something else with my left hand.

And they know this.

[00:21:46] Mica: You mentioned earlier that you notice a change in your students when it clicks, when that light bulb happens, what does that look like in that moment?

[00:21:58] Frank: They find [00:22:00] out that who they, they thought they were isn't necessarily who they are. They see what they can do. And they see what they're good at.

I, I, I find it interesting that people say things like, I'm an introvert, and it's like, you can say that, but are you really? You don't know. You, you might not be. It's, Oh, I don't, I don't, I can't, I won't. And it's like, find out what you can do and you're pretty good at, and then it'll tell you, right.

[00:22:31] Mica: Yeah. It's like your astrology sign where they're like, Virgos, cuz I'm a Virgo. And they're like, Virgos are very organized. And I'm like, I'm not very organized. Virgos are very clean. And I'm like, I'm cluttered. Have you seen my desk? We tend to wrap our identity so much into these things.

We feel ashamed, like, Hey, I, I'm not organized and I'm a Virgo and I feel like I should be organized because I'm a Virgo. It's like, No, you [00:23:00] are who you are. You embrace that. This leads into the next thing I wanna talk about.

The first class I took of yours was Intermediate Photography, and at the time I was studying to be a family photographer. I actually liked food photography, but I didn't think that I could realistically make a living off of it.

I remember one lecture you talked about photographers, like students who are trying to be photographers that they think they should be and not embracing the ones that they are.

If you're a product photographer and you're good at it and you enjoy it, then that's the journey that you should be pursuing. And if you don't like doing family portraits, then don't do it. That was such a big moment for me because I realized I don't like family portraiture.

I really enjoy food. And from this point on, that's what I'm going to embrace and that's what I'm gonna follow and I'm gonna make it work.[00:24:00] So with that being said, what are some ways that photographers can embrace who they are and what they love to do rather than try to be something or someone else?

[00:24:12] Frank: Well, it's, it's really hard to know who you are and we expect to discover that. And really, in many ways, the world kind of tells us that. I was thinking about compliments the other day and I realized when someone gives you a compliment, , they almost always say the same thing. I like your eyes, I like your hair.

You've got a beautiful smile. And it's like, does anyone who has a beautiful smile? Does someone ever say, I like your eyes? No. It's always their smile or whatever. And it's always the same thing. And so it's funny about how you find out who you are and you know, I used to think, Oh, if I just work on it, I'll be a friendly guy.

And it's like, no, People look at me and say, [00:25:00] Actually, Frank, you're really not easy to get along with. And very often you can be kind of a jerk. You're not friendly at all. Maybe after a while. So, listen to that without taking it too personally, but see how the world responds to you and use that to your advantage.

If you find out that you can go into situations and have people do things for you, find a vocation where you can put that to use. Be a publicist or something. I used to know some photographers who were complete bullies, bullies in everything they did. They were great celebrity photographers. Why? Cuz celebrities would come in here with their agenda and these photographers would say, No, I'm sorry, but we're not doing that.

And they were great at it. I would be intimidated by them. So I wasn't good at it.

[00:25:53] Mica: I like that. I like that. Find your personality, what makes you you, [00:26:00] and embrace that in your client work and how you deal with people and just be proud of who you are as a person and those things. At what point in your career did you embrace who you were and the type of photographer that you are?

[00:26:14] Frank: Well, I think when I started studying photography, I think I went around, I wanted to be a street photographer. Everyone wanted to go out and be a photojournalist. I was really interested in that and I still think that's the best photography that's out there. But, I'm afraid of loud noises. I don't walk up to people very easily ask them to take their photos.

I don't take those kind of risks. I like going home at night, cooking and eating good food. I don't like sleeping on, you know, bad places. Uh, I, it would be a terrible war photojournalist photographer. I don't like, I don't take those things and that's what I loved. So what did I found? I found studio work.

It's great. You have regular hours, you show up. It's very technical. I [00:27:00] got to know that the, the, the stuff doesn't move. Or if I photograph food, I like food. I know my way around it. I know the difference between a wine glass and a shot glass and a margarita glass so I know that and I didn't mind it, and so I did that.

[00:27:17] Mica: It's funny that you mention war photography, street photography, and realizing there are certain parts of that that you don't like. For a while I always enjoyed like photojournalism, which is one of the reasons why I thought wedding photography would be really cool because you're capturing happy moments, love. That type of thing.

But I quickly realized with weddings, there are so many things that could go wrong, and it's just out of your control. And I realized that I'm a very controlling person. That took a while for me to embrace and be okay with that. One interesting course that really changed everything for me, was you taught studio management.[00:28:00] It altered the way I looked at myself as a photographer. Cuz before I was just trying to learn how to take a photo but I didn't think about the whole other side of the business. It made me realize that if I wanna make this a living, if I want to be able to pay my bills doing this, that I'm gonna have to operate with two different hats.

I'm gonna have to have a business hat, I'm gonna have to have a artist hat. I wasn't ready for that, but it was such an important course to take. I wanna know why is that such an important course for students to take?

[00:28:37] Frank: Well, one of the myths in culture that, that we hear is, is that do what you love and the money will follow. That's not true. Whoever wrote that was trying to write a book and sell books or something that's a bunch of, I won't use that word. It's do what you think you don't mind doing that you can have [00:29:00] a significant amount of distance from it. My dad used to say, if you really want to help people and you wanna be a doctor to help people, the best thing for you to do would be start family practice in some poor community in the United States or elsewhere.

You really be helping a lot of people. You won't make any money, but you'll be doing the greatest amount good. If you really wanna make a lot of money and be successful, be a pharmacy rep. You know, get into that, that's where the money is, right? It's still medicine. You know, sell those drugs that cost $7,000 a pill or whatever.

So somewhere in there, I think you can find something that, that gives you a good balance. But don't say that you just should do what you love and the money will follow.

[00:29:45] Mica: That's interesting. Are you saying that money shouldn't be the only thing that pushes you forward?

[00:29:51] Frank: That's true. When people just do things for the money, they can be very unhappy. But it's not an absolute, it's a sliding scale. You just figure out [00:30:00] what you don't mind doing so much, right?

[00:30:02] Mica: yeah, that makes total sense. At the beginning of the semester, what do you hope students take away from that course?

[00:30:09] Frank: That it's important to have enough distance from it. Look, people can say things like, Oh, I don't like billing and I don't wanna sit there and talk about contracts. And sure, nobody wants to do that. But if we can make politics and religion a business in this country, you can make photography a business. I mean

[00:30:32] Mica: We're gonna put that on a billboard.

[00:30:35] Frank: There's two things that shouldn't be a business in this country, politics and religion.

And guess what?

[00:30:40] Mica: They are businesses. I'm really gonna put that on a billboard. So when a photographer is in business, what does that look like?

[00:30:57] Frank: Well, you realize that the [00:31:00] photography part doesn't take that much time when you're doing it. It's probably at most 10% of the time. And so the rest of it is just managing these things. I do an exercise with my students on some of these classes where the student sits down and I prevent the person who's the photographer from touching the light.

I prevent them from touching the camera, and then they have a digital tech who's only allowed to touch the computer, they can't touch the lights and the lights and, and then they have to direct that and they have to say, move that light. And they have to identify the light up and they have to identify where and how so they can talk about these things.

I remember there were a few times when I would do food shoots and they'd be just knockout white and I would set them up and get them all lit and then I would have the stylist and the assistant just drop products in and click the shutter. And they were just positioning and [00:32:00] working. And I'm going up and I'm doing the books and I'm getting billed as a photographer.

And then I would just see them come up and I would look at it and it's like, yeah, and I'd shout down from down below, move that around a little, put a card in. And the assistant loved it cuz they got first experience, the stylist loved it cuz they didn't have to work with me, and so it worked out.

[00:32:20] Mica: It's so interesting that exercise that teaching your students, whoever's the photographer to lead and tell which team member to do what that. Gosh, that's such a pivotal thing. Just super duper important that they know how to communicate to their team.

[00:32:39] Frank: You realize that in a movie, the director never actually even looks through the camera.

[00:32:43] Mica: I didn't know that.

[00:32:45] Frank: They don't. They're just there to talk about how it's gonna go and they're there to get good acting from the actors. This is why you can be an actor and say, I'm directing this movie. You don't have to learn about F-stops or shutters or [00:33:00] lighting. There's people to do that. You just say to the camera person.

Can we move this up and can we move in closer? And the cinematographer says, Absolutely. And they, Okay, good.

[00:33:13] Mica: Do you think it's harder for some students to take that stance and to speak with assertiveness to their team.

[00:33:20] Frank: Yes, it is. Because they have to be very articulate about what they want. And so what's important at this point is when you are talking about it, you can talk about a shot and imagine how it's gonna look. And this is important whenever you're talking to an art director and then they say, Well, this is what we want.

We want this shot to look at night and we want these people out dancing on the dock in the moonlight. And you say, Okay, dusk. Two people. Dancing. What age? I'll need an assistant to hold a light that mimics moonlight. I'll be there, I'll shoot low.[00:34:00] I know where to scout it. I've done these things where I do it and I draw out what it's gonna look like and hand it to 'em. And then as a commercial photographer, you say, This is exactly what I said you'd get. So to use language to talk about an image is important. You will do that for the rest of your career.

[00:34:20] Mica: How can students get more comfortable with leading a team? Is it practice like in the mirror or just practicing in shoots?

[00:34:29] Frank: Yeah, practicing in shoots. As soon as you tell them they can't touch the light and they just have to sit there, they'll pay a lot more attention to there real purpose, and that is to look through the camera.

[00:34:42] Mica: That's such an interesting point. The last two years, are the first times that I've actually had enough of a budget to hire a team. And that was like the hardest thing for me to get comfortable with. I was talking to my husband about this and I told him, I don't wanna be mean, I don't wanna be an [00:35:00] asshole. And he said, you hired this team to help you get this image. Your loyalty, your duty is to create this image for your client.

Being assertive, it's not the same thing as being mean. And it's not the same thing as being a jerk. They are looking to you to lead them.

[00:35:19] Frank: Yeah, and, and I think you remember what's interesting, and I tell students this all the time. Once you're in charge of the whole thing and you're the photographer, it's amazing how your brain shuts off and you just get like, I don't remember what the F stop does. And I tell my students this all the time.

If you ever can't figure something out with a camera on a menu or something like that, you take that camera or that light, hand it to the assistant and say, Figure this out. The client and I are gonna go chat about this thing and have another coffee. What is that shorthand for? I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

You need to figure it out. So they're [00:36:00] not looking over seeing me sweat.

[00:36:01] Mica: Yeah, it's, it's really funny that you mention how photographers like their brains just shut off cuz that is so, so, so true. And I actually recently learned a really valuable lesson about choosing your assistants carefully. I had done a favor for a family friend. I'd taken some pictures of his art and he insisted I shoot in jpeg. So I switched my camera to jpeg, shot the photos. Few weeks go by and I am doing a shoot for a client. The assistant that I had hired, an emergency came up so she couldn't assist me that day. But she's like, I have a great friend, who doesn't know a lot about photography, but she's a quick learner and she is willing to assist you. Brought her on. That day for some reason I was like really nitpicky about my light and it was a good [00:37:00] reason because it turned out that I'd been shooting in jpeg that entire shoot. When I realized that we were shooting in jpeg, I did an internal fuck. And I didn't react, I didn't say anything.

I just changed it to, to raw. And I just kept the, the shoot going and it was fine. And the clients were happy with everything that turned out. But in that moment, I was dying internally and I was thinking, fuck, these are all JPEGs. That was a huge mistake that I think an assistant who has assisted a photographer before would not have missed, and I didn't even think to check my camera cuz that that thing happened weeks ago. But moments like that, are those things that you teach students to prepare for?

[00:37:47] Frank: Oh, that one in particular, I go up to students and I cover up the information on the screen, and it's like, what's your ISO? What's your shutter speed? What's your F Stop? Are you [00:38:00] shooting raw? Or sometimes I'll even say, as I'm walking by, it's like, that's funny. You're shooting those in jpeg. And they're, they look and they look and they're like, No, I'm not.

And it's like, Okay, but you'll check the next time. Because they were panicked and they could see what panic that could, it's probably not fair, but it's better that they panic about it now.

[00:38:22] Mica: Yeah, instead of halfway through the shoot. So I wanna pivot to photographers entering today's industry. What challenges do they face today?

[00:38:38] Frank: Well, it's that everyone's a photographer. The technology makes it so easy these days. You have these meters in there that tell you automatically how much light you're getting. Gosh, these days the, the cameras focus themselves.

You don't even have to focus. Or you know the difference between roll film? What do you mean roll [00:39:00] film? In my day we used to have to put in sheet film. The camera I worked on mostly in my career was four by five. A lot of it, four by five sheet film. No auto focus, no auto exposure. Had to work on a tripod, had all kinds of movements.

It was, it was hard. My first camera that had a meter built into it was my digital camera.

[00:39:23] Mica: And these are things that we take for granted. The built in meter, the auto focus, the anti shake.

[00:39:31] Frank: The select subject that's available to you in Lightroom these days are on your phone, but still people need to know how, what that looks like and, and technology will always be there and how we do it and, and how we learn from it. It will always be a challenge, and it will always seem that it's just too easy to be a photographer these days or whatever.

But there's always room at the top.

[00:39:59] Mica: Do you think [00:40:00] that there's enough work today for, for new photographers?

[00:40:04] Frank: There might not be.

Do I think photographers working today should go out and try and find new work? Yeah. I was just driving down Congress Street and I saw, the bridge and I saw those tourists looking at bats. How come there isn't someone there with a photo booth with a cowboy and a pony? It's like, come to us and get your photo taken with a cow real cowboy. I know that's not high end stuff, but it could be there.

[00:40:33] Mica: What I'm understanding is that they shouldn't wait for work to come around, but they should create work for themselves.

[00:40:39] Frank: Mm-hmm. So I do this side gig on the weekends where I do these Airbnb experiences. One thing I know a lot about is walking around. So I have these Airbnb experiences at Bull Creek and have people come and I say, it's a photo tour. They bring a camera, they [00:41:00] ask questions about photography. I take 'em to these locations.

They shoot beautiful nature photos. We, we go swimming. I show them that they can actually take their iPhones, and bring 'em into the water. I take 'em into the water. I shoot photos of them under a waterfall, and it's like, you can do that. I make lunches. We have lunches and we have a lovely walk and I get paid for it.

And I have a spot and they're out taking photos in the sun and I have a little spot in this abandoned house and it's like, go into the closet, it's beautiful light. And all the families go into this closet and I do a photo and they're like, That's really good. It's like it's good light and you all are a beautiful family.

[00:41:42] Mica: What are some things that aspiring photographers should be doing now to set themselves up for success in the future?

[00:41:49] Frank: Always finding new markets.

Musicians had to do it. They used to sell music and people bought it. And what are they doing now? They're doing live shows where the sound [00:42:00] is usually not as good. But they're going there. They're turning it into an event. People enjoy it. They just had to find a new market because Spotify and all that took their bread and butter.

[00:42:13] Mica: Also TikTok has just become such a great place for musicians to get their work out there. I can't remember which artist it was, but they had a song called Roxanne and it went viral on TikTok and it was number one on the charts for a couple of weeks.

Knock TikTok, if you will, but people are changing their lives out here. They're just getting creative with getting their work out there and getting it shown and seen. You have to be pretty flexible with how things change. Do you think it's easier for people to adapt now than it was when you started?

[00:42:47] Frank: It's never been easy to do anything. It's always been a challenge.

[00:42:53] Mica: How can we navigate that?

[00:42:54] Frank: You do it the only way anyone has ever done things, show up on time, do [00:43:00] what you say you're gonna do, deliver. That's all.

[00:43:03] Mica: No matter what changes, what technology comes in, it all boils down to three core things. And the three things that you just mentioned.

[00:43:12] Frank: Yeah, I think so. I could say that it's, it's harder now, but that's chickening out.

[00:43:18] Mica: I agree. What's the saying when there's a will, there's a way?

[00:43:21] Frank: Yeah,

[00:43:22] Mica: How has technology changed the way we make art and look at art?

[00:43:27] Frank: Well that's the other thing that has always been around us. When Homer wrote the Illiad in the Odyssey, it was an oral tradition and you just had to memorize the whole all books. How hard can that be? Right. Memorized the whole book. And then someone came out with this new high tech thing called an alphabet, and they're like, Wow, we can write it down.

And so they wrote it down on a scroll or whatever and they're like, Wow, there, that's really cool. And then a thousand years later someone said, [00:44:00] Hey, you know, this unrolling, this scroll is really hard. Let's just put it in a book. We got this new high tech thing called the Printing Press. So they published it.

Well, don't you think there were people out there saying, I don't know about this book thing. It's expensive, they're heavy. The scrolls were just fine. What was wrong with this? And why do we have to write things down? We had whoever there out there who just memorized the thing. He always had it with it.

And he taught his kid. And now you can get it you as an audio book while you sleep or whatever. So, there is always technology. It's always going to seem new. It's always gonna be difficult for early adopters, and this is what's great about the world is old people die and young people, are born and they do things differently. It's great. They should, [00:45:00] right? Oh no, the last good music that was written was Bach. That was it. I'm not listening to anything else. It's pretty good, right? No, things change.

[00:45:11] Mica: My husband, he plays in a progressive rock band, and every album he works on, he's always thinking about what instruments can I incorporate into this album that I haven't already done? For example, his last album, he had a string quartet, and he had some feedback from listeners who, like a quartet in a progressive rock band that's just, that is not progressive rock. And Aaron is like, well, it's called progressive. If you're gonna stay stuck in the past, that's fine. But Progressive Rock is all about progressing. He's like, You gotta keep pushing the envelope and seeing how far you can take something.

So this, this is a little off topic. But one of the [00:46:00] many things I like about your classes is that you bring professionals working in the industry to come talk to your students.

Like you brought Brio, you brought Addie, like you've brought so many people to classes and it was just really cool to like get to know what their jobs are like and what they do and how you can incorporate that in your career.

So if you could invite any person living or dead to speak at one of your classes, who would it be and why?

[00:46:28] Frank: My favorite people to speak are former students because they know what it's like. They're doing things. They are at the point where these students will be soon and they can see that it's actually possible and they can do it, and they inevitably say something like, Don't listen to Frank when he tells you about this thing cuz I never found it to be true at all.

So here's what worked for me. And it's like, great, I'm glad you found that. [00:47:00] Or sometimes they'll say, whenever Frank said this about clients not paying. That's true. Cuz they don't like, I'm so sorry I ever doubted you cuz they don't. So that perspective is important.

[00:47:14] Mica: I love that. Former students.

So. I've enjoyed this interview so much. I feel like I need to take another one of your classes cuz I always walk away with just such a wealth of knowledge. So thank you for being on today's show.

I have one last question.

[00:47:32] Frank: Yes.

[00:47:33] Mica: What do you hope people walk away from today's episode?

[00:47:37] Frank: That they're gonna find their own way and they're gonna find out what works for them. Even though I teach this, I'm not able to tell them this is the way to do it because, they need to discover that on their own.

I forgot to mention to you, on November 19th, I'm having a show.

[00:47:56] Mica: Tell us more about that.

[00:47:58] Frank: I was doing some images[00:48:00] of dancers cuz I started getting into acro and I was doing a lot of modern dance associations.

And so I was asking these people to pose for these photographs. I was really interested in dance. I've always been interested in it. My dad who taught biology, he would always ask me about insects. He would say, a beetle, what is its uh, genus. And I'd say, well, that's coleoptera or hymenoptera or hemiptera and flies. And we'd name all these. And so I started doing all these orders of insects. I've got some 20 images of dancers as insects in the studio, and I'm going to show it at the Long Time. It's a kind of this open area. I have commissioned a dance company to do a performance, so I'm combining my photographs with these dancers who are actually dancing.

There's gonna be music there. My friend Jorge, I think is gonna make tacos, so it's gonna be a whole event. I'm trying to take [00:49:00] this whole thing away from the idea of an opening is being people just go in, they drink some wine, have some cheese, look at photos and try and sell them to try and pull this into some things I really like.

I like dance, I like photography, I like people getting together, and I find insects fascinating.

The reason I started doing this is that I was doing a kind of photography I didn't do, and I knew the first times I did it, I would fail at miserably. I didn't know what kind of results I would get. I didn't know what I was doing. I paid everyone who worked there. I paid all the models, I paid my assistants.

Everyone worked for that. Every time I do something, it cost me money. So I had to get something that was just for me and it wasn't for another client. It was really freeing. If it succeeded or failed, it was on my own terms. And that's what's important. It's gonna [00:50:00] be on your own terms.

[00:50:01] Mica: If you're gonna fail or succeed, it's gonna be on your own terms. That's great. That's brilliant. So it's the 19th at Long Time.

[00:50:11] Frank: The Long Time. It's a baseball field.

It's an empty house that they dragged onto the property.

[00:50:18] Mica: That is so cool. Frank, thank you so much. For being a guest on this podcast. This really was, gosh, this was a damn good interview. And you were amazing. I'm just so glad that ACC has you and that we've crossed paths.

[00:50:34] Frank: It was my pleasure. It was nice seeing you and running into you the other day. I look forward to hearing this.

[00:50:41] Mica: Thank you everyone for listening. If you are in Austin, please check out this gallery opening. If you like tacos, which who doesn't? And dancers and it's gonna be a whole experience, so definitely check that out. Where can people support you and follow [00:51:00] you?

Well, I have a website that hasn't really shown everything yet. It has some other work in it, mostly because I want it to come out on the show. And then once the show's done, I'll probably populate the website. I might put some choice pieces in there. I'm still working on them though. The company that I'm working with is called Blip Switch, and they should be promoting it here soon.

Very cool. Very cool. Well, thank you again and thank you everyone for listening.

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