Have you ever had a bad experience, on your photo shoots? Or maybe you’ve been told to do something you just don’t feel like you want to do.
If you’re not sure how to react in a situation like this, our guest today will share with you his experience in similar situations.

And this way you will be more prepared to own the moment the next day.

Today we’ll also talk about pricing and how to approach it the right way and how to adapt to the change in the world.
And especially in our area. Maybe the secret is a photography friendship?

This is the fashion photography podcast my lovely photography lovers! My name is Virginia and we’re here every week to help you to become the best version of yourself and to reach your photography goals.

If you’re a fan of the show, and you get some value from it, please consider supporting the show with $1 or $2 to per month by donating to our Patreon account – https://www.patreon.com/photographypodcast 
And of course for you help we’ve prepared some great perks like a short critique of the photo challenge that we are sending you in our newsletter, the opportunity to know in advance who will be the next guest and also to ask them a question!
And the biggest of all perks – one hour consultation with me Virginia on a monthly basis.

Now… it’s time for the second part of our interview with Corey!

Corey Nickols
Thank you. That logo actually was designed by my friend who is a children’s Illustrator. His name is PIP Craighead. He is super talented kids. He has a great style, but I wanted something that was different. My whole outlook on photography is I’m trying to do something that’s different. And I didn’t want to have a font based thing that I could remind people by. I wanted people to be like, Oh, it’s the dude like on the cartoonishly childish record. Like I love that. That’s so me,

Virginia Y
because guys, that’s his logo. He’s sitting on a unicorn with his camera. Larry, it’s you should see it. Tell the people where they can actually take a look at it.

Corey Nickols
Yeah, it’s Corey Nichols calm and he y for Corey. And then and I ck lls. So if that’s too hard, unicorn fight club.com will get you there as well.

Virginia Y
Awesome. And if you’re very confused right now, just click the links in the show notes.

Is there a project like this shot with that type of camera that we can see on your website,

Corey Nickols
I just got a whole new website that I’m in the process of updating. But I converted my entire Instagram to insects, the most work that you would ever be able to see from it is going to be on my Instagram and nice. Also what I try to do as well if I shoot a celebrity or someone who I did an actual photo shoot with, and I’m shooting with insects, I try to include an actual photo from the shoot as a carousel that you can see you can see the Polaroid what the polar it looks like. And you can see what the actual shoot looks like.

Virginia Y
So cool. idea. Is there something else that you do every time on each and every photoshoot like a ritual,

Corey Nickols
a ritual, my music is huge to me, it should be huge, almost everyone, but I curated a 1930s 1940s

playlist, where I curated on Spotify, I like to make my own playlist. And so I have a playlist that’s about 600 songs. And it’s all like 30s and 40s just shared. Yeah, you can Yeah, I’m unicorn Fight Club on Spotify. So if you want to see unify club across the board for almost everything, except I think someone hacked my Twitter. So I’m just going to let that one die off better than that.

Across the board, is me.

Virginia Y
So we can also listen to the songs that you’re listening during your photo shoots. This is just so cool. We’re going to be together.

Corey Nickols
Exactly, I’d be honored if anyone actually want to listen to my playlist. I love that playlist in particular, because I find across the board, everyone enjoys it. And it does not stress me out at all. You know, sometimes you can you can play something that’ll pump you up for a little bit. And then when you’re trying to critically think about what you’re trying to do, all of a sudden, you’re like, man, I need to like switch to this song because it’s starting to like aggravate me. I find that songs from the 20s 30s 40s.

So easy going like how could you not be happy you all listening to him?

Virginia Y
Have you ever had it? Like I said, candle. Oh, this is turning into a yellowish

cord can use.

But I was enjoying because in every photo there is so much fun. And it looks like I just want to be in your studio when I’m looking at your photos. I’m just like, I don’t want to shoot while I’m there. I just want to stay around. laugh with you guys.

Corey Nickols
Oh, thank you. That’s super nice of you to say,

Virginia Y
Have you ever had a bad situation? You’re in photo? Shoot?

Corey Nickols
I you know, I’m a photographer, right? You know that everyone’s had a bad situation, right? I’ve had situations that you know, go really awry. And And the thing is, at the end of the day, it’s more so about if you’re going to be active or reactive. If someone comes up or says something that’s displeasing to you? Or is disruptive to the shoot? Are you going to react to that thing that they say? Or are you going to act in a different way to direct direct it back into harmony? You know, beyond say calls yourself Sasha Fierce whenever she’s performing, because she claims to be a different person. And I feel like I almost become a little bit of a different person when I’m shooting. I’ve had people to tell me to shut up like straight to my face. I’ve you know, I’ve had been told me and stuff. And what’s funny is if it was just me without a camera, I’d be like, wow, that was really mean. But when I’m holding a camera, it’s weird. It’s like this weird buffer. I’m like, Okay, well, that’s your opinion. Let’s keep shooting. You know?

Virginia Y
That’s so cool. And I should tell you, I’m much braver, not. And I’m a coward to be honest. And I’m kind of crazy if we have a bad and you tell me you cannot do this. I’m so going to do this. And I have no idea. The worst part about it is that I always forget to arrange the benefit from the bad. So I’m just first doing it to show you to prove you that I can do it. And then I’m like, What am winning and even like, nothing I just said.

Corey Nickols
so bad. That’s great. Like moments like that. The they create great dynamic shots. I feel like,

Virginia Y
Oh no, I mean in life, but with the camera. I’m like a shark. I will do everything. For example, when I said not that I’m like a shark. I’m super afraid of sharks, I’ve never seen a shark.

So funny, because in my country, we have a sea and in the sea, there are sharks, but they’re very small sharks. So usually when I go to see because I’m not a very good swimmer, unfortunately, I love being in the water, but I’m not a good swimmer. So when I go to the sea, and if there is something around my food, for example, I’m just going to run so bad.

Service without water on,

that you won’t even understand and I’m gone. I’m that fast. And everyone is like you should not be scared. The Sharks in our sea are so small. They’re like meters 50 meter 55. Do you have any idea how big this

is centimeters smaller than me. But we the camera, I’m just going to swim along with the sharks, just because I need the photo. I also believe that when we’re having camera, I think that that’s the reason why so many people are starting with photography, because they’re somehow fighting their fears. For example, you know, many people, they feel very intimidated when they’re talking to other people and somehow holding the camera is making them feel stronger. And they can still talk to the people with no worries,

Corey Nickols
I have this weird thing that I realized, I have a hard time looking at people in the eyes. And part of that is because I’m very sensitive and very empathetic. And sometimes when I’m looking at people in the eyes, it’s very intense for me. A lot of times I like having a camera because it helps me I can look at everyone in the eyes when I have a camera for whatever reason it’s still wrong went off. And I realized the social implications that it brings from not having a hard time looking at people in the eyes. Because a lot of people like this guy been listening to me is this guy, you know, but like, when I hear things, everything is so vibrant and crazy in my head and I’m painting such a vivid picture in my head that if I add looking at them in the eyes, it becomes way too intense. And so there’ll be times where I’ll be like God, look in the eyes. Corey, gotta look him in the eyes glory. They’re gonna think you’re weird unless you look into the eyes glory. But I find if I have a camera, I can look at everyone in the eyes and it kind of creates a different I don’t know, it’s hard to explain.

Virginia Y
You can go so deep in their story because you’re a dyslexic. Right? I’m very dyslexic.

Corey Nickols
And I know you are do which is like Yeah, yeah, that’s why we both chose photo.

Virginia Y
It’s another episode of our diseases podcast.

Corey Nickols
Yeah, exactly. Welcome to broken corner.

Tell me away. curious, what is your dyslexia? like? What does that look like for you? Because I think there’s a lot of different ranges of dyslexia. I feel like I have a really weird version of it. But tell me your isn’t all play mine?

Virginia Y
Well, yeah, it’s weird. So I’m also very empathetic. You should not look at me when, for example, I’m watching even master chef. I’m crying like crazy. Bastard show. Yeah, even even if I don’t like the person, and I don’t like their recipes. For example. Yeah, I just want this guy to be gone. I don’t want them in the show. And then the judges are like, sorry, you should go. And I’m, I’m bursting in tears right away.

So bad for that. I can immediately just imagine what would it be if I’m there, and if they’re seeing this very same thing to me, which is so bad. And I suffer a lot from that, actually, because

Corey Nickols
It’s just so not funny. I know. I’m

Virginia Y
Awesome.

Corey Nickols
I don’t think I’ve ever you hear people like crying during certain commercials, or, or like, I just watched Mr. Rogers documentary. And I was bawling through that. But I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone crying through master chef. That’s, that’s a first that’s kind of it. It’s

Virginia Y
Amazing. You should have seen my boyfriend the very first time because I’m super calm at the beginning when they’re talking. And I’m like, I don’t give up.

They say I’m sorry, you should go.

I’m like a river. It’s just actually, I don’t know about many things that are coming from my dyslexia, because for me, they’re super normal things. And I had never had idea that other people are not having the same experience. But why don’t you just share with us yours. And I can tell you if we’re having anything in common.

Corey Nickols
My version of dyslexia looks like this. When I read things. My eyes will take letters from different words, and it will rearrange it to spell out a totally new word that’s not even there. And so I will miss read almost everything.

Virginia Y
Yeah, it’s not easy for you.

Corey Nickols
Yeah. And the things that I do read correctly, my visual is really big. So I can I can really in depth, feel things and go into that level. But the problem is, I miss read stuff all the time. That can also translate over to how I pronounce stuff as well, because I read stuff that’s not even there. I pronounce words. So sloppy. I know for a fact, I misspelled your name like three times, because when I wrote it out, I was convinced I was actually spelling it, right? Not like the American version of Virginia or anything like that. But I was convinced that I was spelling it, right? And I read it right. And I kept reading it right. And a lot of times when I write an email, that’s important, I have to read it about 10 times. Because the first five times it’s wrong. It’s just exhausting. And I didn’t realize that this was the case until I went to college. And what’s kind of funny is, I feel like technology and everything has caught up to make it very mad manageable for people who are dyslexic. Yeah, in college, I didn’t realize until I took my last English class, that audio books were really easily accessible because iTunes had finally made it to where audio books were accessible. So every book that my English class had, I would listen to all the audio books. What’s crazy about that, and this just kind of goes into the depths of everything else. I didn’t take any notes the entire time I was in my class, because even writing stuff out, I have scribbled out words, I have to scribble out a bunch of stuff. And it looks like I don’t know, a serial killer is writing a ransom note my, my handwriting is so terrible. Everything about it’s almost like painful to write stuff because it feels wrong. So I’m listening to these audiobooks, and I’m not taking notes. And it comes to be the end of the class. And my teacher approaches me and he says, Hey, in the 10 years that I’ve been teaching, I’ve actually never given out this high of a grade because he’s like, I don’t do extra credit. Everything that you get, you’ve like, basically earned, so there’s no way to make up for stuff. And he’s like, Yeah, you got a nice d 8.5%. Which is insane. And then he asked, What’s your studying notes, I was like, I didn’t take any notes. And I listened to every book on audio. And I found out that where my mind lacks with dyslexia, and like makes up a whole story that’s not there. My listening skills make up for that. I almost have like a borderline photographic memory when it comes to listening, knowing that I was able to take that on and be like, Okay, great, because people will give you tons of books, and they’re like, you should be reading and everyone portrays reading as this giant strength. And when people hear that you do audiobooks, it’s sort of frowned upon. I think it’s getting more acceptable now, but it’s very frowned upon. And for me, I’m like, we live in a culture where we need to listen to each other. And we need to hear each other out and know who we are, as a society as a country as the world in general, like we need to hear people out. And I feel like listening is probably one of the most important traits that you could possibly have. But yet, for some reason, in the world of reading, unless you’re reading a physical book, it doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know, it was just interesting, because I could tell my teacher did not like the fact that I listened to audiobooks.

Virginia Y
I believe that so much, you have no idea. I’m also very good with listening. And I think that’s one of the reasons we are having a podcast here. But there was a study, actually, that says that when you’re listening and writing down your mind is all about writing it correctly, and making sure that everything that you’ve heard is right now on the piece of paper in front of you. So all of your energy, your brain energy is going to this process and not to the listening and understanding process. So it’s a huge thing, actually. And

there is something that my boyfriend was laughing so hard about because I’m really so used to podcasts and audiobooks now that I want to listen to everything. I’m a big fan, for example of medium. Have you heard of this website?

Corey Nickols
Medium, I have not.

Virginia Y
It’s an amazing website. It’s like a blog website. But this time, instead of going to your favorite three bloggers, and they’re all together, all bloggers are going to medium, and they can still publish their blogs. So it’s like articles, articles, articles on very different topic. You have to read it. There is a section with audio, but it’s not a very broad section. So you cannot listen to everything. So it was like I’m really into medium. I love it so far. But I want to listen to those stuff. So one day, I was like, there must be an option. And if there is not somebody should make it like an extension for Chrome, because I’m using Chrome for something like that to read through the tax. And just from speech to text, this is going to be the other way around from text to speech. And there are plenty of those actually. So now I have this extension on my Chrome. I’m sorry to say that for the listeners, I love reading. I also love reading. And when I have the time, I do read actual books. I have my Kindle with me. But I don’t have the Sunday often. And I like reading so I’ll give books are working for me. And this extension is doing that job. Because you don’t even have to be at the same top. You’re just selecting What do you want to hear? And they’re bringing the text to speech, and you can listen to it all day. Oh, that’s great.

Corey Nickols
I love it. Because the only one that I have is on my Mac, I can highlight it and have a read it back. But it sounds terrible to listen to. So so the whole time I’m like, ah, I feel like someone’s rubbing sandpaper in my ears or something. It’s so bad.

Virginia Y
And do you have any other problems from coming from your dyslexia,

Corey Nickols
I and this is a true story. I one of the times I was out in New York was setting up meetings with just different people, I was reaching out to different people. And there’s someone that was really excited to meet up with and I was emailing back and forth about times and everything else. I would meticulously you know, read over the emails I sent and I completely misspelled her name, but didn’t realize it misspelled her name. She had a first name and last name, but at the same first name, last name, but the last name could also be a first name. So I call her by the last name. Yeah, cuz my brain just mix up the order, which it happens all the time. But anyways, they write back and they say my name is blah, blah, blah. And that was it. And that killed my opportunity of meeting up with the person because they were so offended that I called him by their last name. And so their first name, I’m not even kidding,

Virginia Y
That’s so bad.

Corey Nickols
I’ve had stuff like that. But some people are more forgiving than others. There’s a client that I was shooting for. I kept calling them a totally different name because I was constantly taking the first half of their first name and the last half of their last name and merging it together as one word that made an actual name. But it was not their actual name. So I kept calling them by this name. And they’re like, I’m sorry, are you calling me this name? And I was like, yeah, that’s your name? No, no, my name. And there were were gracious about it. And inside explaining like, I’m so sorry, I’m dyslexic. And I literally, you can obviously see I took the first half of your first name, the last half of your last name, and I made a whole word out of it. And that’s what all of you, obviously like this is either a psychopath or someone who’s dyslexic.

I’m not crazy.

Virginia Y
Let’s go back to photography. Okay. I think it was very cool that you mentioned your syndication?

Corey Nickols
Yes

Virginia Y
I was thinking that maybe you can give us some devices and even tell us how it happened for you. Yeah, that was a big jump.

Corey Nickols
This is great. I’m like dyslexia, and then Getty, okay.

So I had built up a body of work that was big enough to acquire it. And by the way, it doesn’t matter what you’re trying to pursue, you have to have a basis of being able to prove yourself in order to get to the place that you’re trying to get to. It’s not just syndication, it’s everything. In general, you’re trying to shoot entertainment, great, you got to get entertainment, your book. So you’re gonna do free jobs for publicist in order to get that starting, then move from there. Or if you have friends who work at certain magazines, you know, so anyways, with syndication, I had built up enough of a catalog that it would benefit Getty to bring me on because then they could sell images, and it was enough images. At the very least, though, it’s great to have these conversations. And even if you’re not ready, because even if you have a little bit, you can just be honest and say, Hey, I don’t I don’t know if I have enough images to be considered for these things. But I just want to say hi, I’m Corey Nichols. And I would just like to start a conversation now that way, hopefully down down the line, we can maybe form a partnership of some sort. And just to get the conversation rolling, it doesn’t matter if you’re ready or not. If you can just be real about where you’re at and and start that up. It works so much to your benefit. Because then a year, two years, three years down the line. It’s going to be a natural Hey, do you think I can be considered for jumping on board and Yuri have that connection? That’s fair. I had gained enough. And then I also asked around two different people that I knew I said, Hey, do you have any syndication people you’d recommend? And it just so happened that one of the photo editors who I’m really good friends with, she knew some people at Getty and put me in contact with them started up email chain, saying, hey, Courtney’s great I got for him, would you be up for signing them on for syndication? And that’s actually how I got signed.

Virginia Y
If you just reach out to someone and offer your services. That’s one thing. It’s good. I mean, especially if your services are great, but it’s a completely different story. When someone is like, I come back this guy up, he’s amazing. And even if he’s not the best of the best, you already have this type of confirmation that this guy is serious, and he’s going to do the job.

Corey Nickols
Exactly. recommendation is always far better. It’s like anything, you want to have it to be a natural organic thing for anything. Like music, for example. The most exciting thing about music is when your friend tells you Oh, you got to check out this man. I really like I’m like, I would much rather have that happen, then to do deep searches on Spotify, trying to find bands, or literally just going into a deep hole of clicking similar artists for each person. And then, you know, I’ve found great bands like that. But then I become the person who tells my friends Hey, you gotta check out this band. They’re amazing.

Almost always that guy. That’s all right. Life is meant to be shared. It’s great whenever you can find a team of people to that. segue off that. Do you know who Martin de Porres?

Virginia Y
I’m not quite sure?

Corey Nickols
American photographer, huge entertainment geographer. Really nice guy, great guy. He said something to me recently that is just kind of stuck with me. No one ever tells you how lonely photography is. And I think it’s so true. You’re constantly trying to find commonalities with other people. Like for me, I’m such a team player, the dream for me would be to have a team that I work with on a consistent basis. I love that idea. Because photography is just so lonely. We don’t have a huge union, unless if you’re in the film side of it. There’s like a PA and there’s things like that. But that even of itself, the hold events, which is cool, but there’s not a lot of solidarity and photography. In fact, if anything, I feel like there’s a lot of insecurity in photography, because people see other people’s work, or they’ll see their highlight reel, or they’ll see stuff. And they constantly just judge themselves based on these other people. When really, if you get to know them, they’ll be like, I’m like, Oh, I love that she did. And that she was a nightmare. That’s like, half the time when I hear I could like the work that I think is so phenomenal by other photographers, if you actually just talked to them, and open up with them, they’ll be like, Man, that was horrendous. So happy the way it turned out. But it was just crazy. And I struggled through it. And most people I feel like are dying on the inside. Just to be honest, I think I think they are, the more transparency and honesty we can get in photography, the less lonely it feels. And the more you realize that everyone’s in the same place that you’re at everyone, I think to a certain degree doubts themselves doubts, their abilities, gets nervous, no matter how many shoots you’ve done. But I think there needs to be more communication between other people instead of viewing everyone as your competition.

Virginia Y
This is actually a conversation that I have quite often, especially lately. And it’s something that I think about all the time, not just about photography, but over all. Yeah, there is lots of insecurity. And there are things that are very common between many different people. But if we are all silent, and we think that we are super unique in this thing is only happening to us at this moment. And it’s not

exactly so many people at the very same moment. So you’re completely right, we should talk about it. And I think this is a great way to not just share but also learn from other people’s experiences. Because the way you’re going to react this one and the way I’m going to react to the very same thing, it’s very, very different. I’m not saying that your own my way are the right ones, but they can be beneficial for both of us. And it’s going to be nice to know that there is just another way to react to something. For example, the other day, I was having a conversation with a person who was actually he’s a teacher at the Academy, the National Academy. And he’s super amazing. He’s so driven. He’s constantly making new projects. He’s doing everything that he can put his students, and he shared with me that every one of his co workers, they’re all like, You’re So Amazing. You’re constantly doing stuff for the students. And no one is like, Hey, man, do you need some help?

Because just no one else wants to do it. And he said, It’s not easy. But the final result, it’s just so empowering. And we were talking about prices, for example, because photography right now especially is so, so full of people, almost everyone is into photography, one way or another. Oh, yeah, there is a big problem for the big photographers right now that some new people are coming to the industry, and they’re giving really low prices. And that’s exactly what I said to the teacher that I told you about. Okay, let’s do this. If I’m an old photographer, and you’re a new photographer, and let’s say $300 are the amount of money that I need for the month, let’s just say that. And what you need is $5. Let’s just imagine that for you, if you go to client, you’re very, very new one to the industry, you don’t know my number, you’ve seen my work, you’re not very comfortable to call me or write me, you’re going to be okay with $10. Because this is what you can survive with for two months, right? Yep. And if you do that for the client, for $10, I’m going to bitch about it all day.

Yeah, because I would be like this work where it’s $300 or $3,000, and keep it as pretend dollars, this is ruining the industry, and so on and so on. But I’m not going to say it to your face, I’m going to say to probably all of your co workers.

I see that all the time. And people are bitching about stuff that and they’re not trying to fix them, they’re not starting the conversation, how much is this worth? And how much is this worth? They’re just bitching about it. And I really don’t think this is helping the industry. Because if you and I were having an honest conversation, and you see that I’m an open person, and you call me. And if I tell you actually this thing, were 300 or $3,000,

Corey Nickols
you’re going to get them right, because why not? Why would you underestimate your work? It’s hard, because everyone who’s also coming in the industry as well, who wants to be a part of it? Everyone’s cool with taking lower jobs, because they just want to get their foot in the door. Exactly. But what’s really hard. So for me, I mean, I’ve been out of school for almost 10 and a half years, and I still get people who will be like, hey, literally, we can’t pay you anything for it. But this is a great opportunity. Great opportunity is the word I always wish I was here. Yeah, exactly. And, and like there’s sometimes where there’s weight to it for sure. But I’m such a firm believer of you pay what you can you respect people by paying them. Because you have to realize that ultimately, you paying someone, you’re supporting them, and we live in a world. And that’s like I don’t, I don’t fully know how it is in Bulgaria, I feel like Europe tends to support artists a lot more than America does. In America, everyone expects art to be free. And you don’t realize that there is someone on the other side of that song, or that photo or that video, or whatever it is that you do. And there’s someone on the other side that is literally just trying to survive. At least in the States, you get a lot of people we’re just dying, like, it’s so hard to make a living as someone who creates anymore because everyone expects it. And that’s hard, because I can see both sides of it. In 2008, when I first came out, I would have taken any job because I just want to get my foot in the door. And so in a sense, I’m disrupting the industry. But then,

Virginia Y
but if he knew, like, it’s okay to disrupt the industry, if it’s weird, let’s say 25%, it will 50% of the price on a normal already working photographer would take but you need to know what amount of money this jobs word, you know. And if you don’t know, you’re just, you’re playing a guessing game. Oh, for sure. This is

Corey Nickols
why I harp big time. I’m like, make friends with other photographers. Because you cannot view the group of who we are. You can’t view each other as competition, you might actually have like one or two people who are actually your true competition, but you’re not going to have a lot of competition. And I have a lot of friends who are photographer where when I have questions, I’ll just straight up ask them like, hey, this person hit me up, they want to charge me this, what do you think, and I have a lot of people who can give me price advice on a lot of stuff. But the each one’s going to glean something different. Like my rap is so used to dealing with a big ad jobs and multiple people. And so they’re going to come at it from a perspective of Oh, we expect big budget and all this stuff. Whereas Meanwhile, my other photographer who’s on the ground, and is shooting a bunch of other stuff, he might have a more realistic idea of Oh, it’s for that company, the most you’re going to get as X amount for it. And that’s more realistic thing. Yeah, it’s so good to have open conversations with other photographers about money, about resources about everything.

Virginia Y
And you’re learning stuff constantly, for example, I thought exactly the opposite about dipping that in Europe, because I’m really fortunate. And I’m really grateful for the opportunity to work a lot outside of Bulgaria. So I can actually even see what’s going on with other countries in, for example, Italy, countries that the fashion photography is so developed. So what I see from my experience is that in Europe, people prefer to pay for exposure, or with exposure, to be honest, and I’ve always thought exactly the opposite about the states. And you’re thinking vice versa. It’s just so weird. Obviously, no one is paying anyway.Such a bad conclusion.

Corey Nickols
every industry is different, like someone was telling me recently about and this is where, I don’t know, like my industry is going to be a little bit different than passion went up. But like there’s apparently is I want to somebody that models who haven’t had work in a while will pay to be on billboards for different companies or in magazines.

Virginia Y
Yeah

Corey Nickols
yeah, I know for a fact that there is a specific magazine, where if the photographer is willing to pay them $50,000, they will be able to shoot the cover. I’ve heard stuff like that, which is crazy. People absolutely do that. People do that. I’m not here to say who’s right and who’s wrong. I think at the end, the day everyone’s just trying to fight to survive, there’s been so much greed that it’s really changed a lot of the dynamic of how the whole system works. But at the same time, the people who get left in the dust are the people who are on their porch shaking a stick at the neighbor like Don get off their lawn. And the more that you complain about how it is now compared to how it was, you are going to be stuck, you’re going to be in Arrested Development, because you’re not able to adapt and move forward. And that’s the biggest thing. I’ve actually found a lot of the photographers that have at the hardest are actually pre 2008. Because those are the guys who it was photography from a traditional sense. You have your lighting crew, you have your assistance, you have your retoucher, you have your producer, you have all these things, and the photographer can remain a photographer, and they have the vision and they have the direction. They’re overseeing the entire production. We live in a world now where it’s not often you have full budgets for all of that. So there’ll be people who don’t even have a name. And they’ll be like, man, I used to make a million dollars a year, no problem, and hardly anyone knew who I was. And then now they’re barely able to make anything. And all they can think of was I used to make this much it required me to have an entire team, and they weren’t able to adapt. And the people who are able to come from pre 2008 into a modern world, they were able to adapt, they figured out Okay, I gotta learn how to lie my own stuff, I got to figure out how to do this, I gotta figure out how to work on a very small team, if possible, because those budgets just aren’t there anymore. I think being able to adapt to your surroundings is so paramount.

Virginia Y
I completely agree. This was a conversation that we had with Joel Grimes. And this was so amazing. He said that because he’s been in the market for so long. He said that he had to reinvent his photography and himself as a visual artist, because that’s the way he’s defining he career as a visual artist. More than four times, wow. Yeah. Which is so amazing. And it’s it’s another conversation that I had with an amazing photographer that I love. I truly love this guy. He was my teacher at the university. And I love his work. I love him as a human being. We were the Canon last event for the lightest camera, along with our photographers, of course. And there was a very young guy, I don’t know if he was younger than me, actually. But he was a young guy and the teacher that I told you about, maybe he’s 4045, I’m not quite sure they were already having a conversation. So the young guy was like, Yeah, but it’s all about influencers. You know, now it’s all about the millennials, so on and so on. And I was like, it is not, I’m sorry to interrupt you guys. But it is not, it’s about being flexible and being able to adopt. Because even if you were 85 years old today, if you’re having a quick mind, and when a person is into their work, and they love their work, but what’s going on right now, if their work is, let’s say it’s a profession that is just disappearing. For example, we have Roberts now for most of the stuff, so there are many professions that are actually disappearing. So if you’re suffering for your profession, for many, many years, this is no going to bring you anywhere. But if you adopt the knowledge that you have, you can suddenly become the boss of everything connected to your profession, because for example, you’re going to know what’s exactly the work that this Robert, you do in every little detail about it. So you can become a consultant, you can become something else, you can just reinvent yourself. But instead of this, you’re just suffering that your job is disappearing. Oh, yeah. So we need to be very adaptive,

Corey Nickols
I think you need to strip everything down to a basic level. Like for me, the most exciting thing about photography is that I get to photograph people. It’s not even that I’m photographing a celebrity or a producer or shooting key or or at stuff, it’s more so that you’re dealing with people on it. What’s funny is I recently went on holiday to Amsterdam for a week. And then I went to Scotland and then I drove down to London. But I realized on this vacation, my favorite thing to do is to photograph people in public places with film cameras, like I love doing it. And to me, that’s the most exciting thing about my vacation. Because people are so mysterious and so different and changing and you never know really what you’re going to get. And it’s almost exhilarating to photograph these people. And if you go at your industry from a basis that doesn’t resonate with the core of what you believe you’re going to have problems. These people who are photographers, they got so used to being like, Oh yeah, I’m making lots of money making lots of money. And then when the money goes away, they forgot that they were even photographers are the reason why they’re even shooting in the first place. Yeah, the world doesn’t need another lawyer. The world doesn’t need like someone to get into a career based around money like the world needs people who resonate passionately with the things that they’re doing in order to progress humanity as a whole. And I know that’s, that’s going into like a way deeper philosophical place. But at the same time, I think you have to have such a base reason for why you do that’s so outside of money, which is hard. Or it’s easy if you’re an artist that go at it from that perspective, because let’s face it, it’s hard to make a lot of money. But at the same time, there has to be something that is the core base for the reason why you’re doing what you’re doing. So that way it can withstand times in which you’re financially stressed out.