The Nerdy Photographer Podcast

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

In this episode:

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

Useless information segment:

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

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

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

Support The Nerdy Photographer

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

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

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

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

In this episode:

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

Episode Promos

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

About My Guest

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

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

Website: https://photosbyvicky.net

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

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

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

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

Stories covered in this episode:

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

Support The Nerdy Photographer

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

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

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

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

In this episode:

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

Timestamps:

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

Episode Promos

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

About My Guest

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In this episode:

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

Homework from this episode: The Broken Session

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

Support The Nerdy Photographer

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

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

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

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

In this episode:

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

Episode Promos

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

About My Guest

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

Website: nitratefox.com

Instagram: https://instagram.com/Nitrate_Fox

TikTok: https://tiktok.com/Nitrate_Fox

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

Follow the Nerdy Photographer Podcast:

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

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

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

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

In this episode:

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

Homework from this episode:

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

Support The Nerdy Photographer

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

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

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

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

Topics Covered:

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

Episode Promos

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

ABOUT MY GUEST

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

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

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

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

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

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

Find Ari Espay:

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

Follow the Nerdy Photographer Podcast:

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

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

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

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

What you'll learn:

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

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

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

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

Key takeaways:

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

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

Support The Nerdy Photographer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Episode Promos:

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

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

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

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

Chapters:

00:00 – Introduction

04:19 – Meet David Hendley

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

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

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

13:05 – How athletic discipline translates to photography

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

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

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

28:18 – Advice for finding your own vision

31:40 – Staying true to yourself under pressure

35:06 – Why failure is your best teacher

36:44 – The five-exposure challenge

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

46:17 – Walking past the same lake 40 times

48:07 – Vision vs. commercial pressure

53:13 – Advice for creatives at a crossroads

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

58:27 – Where to find David's work

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

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